Constellations

It was Dad's doing. He's the one who put names and recognizable shapes to certain groups of stars. I learned to recognize the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) and Orion early on. Orion is such a show-off, so big and obvious while the Dipper's shape is familiar. Other constellations followed. Torus was a big V, Cassiopeia's Chair kind of like a big W and in between them was a cluster of stars called the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. But Scorpio eluded me. I just couldn't see it.

One night when, I was maybe 10 or 11, Dad put large black dots on a piece of white paper. Then he took me outside and held up the paper next the constellation and WOW, there it was! 

Scorpio. 

In the late 1950's, up at Gifft Hill, the sky was filled with stars, no light pollution. Sometimes I'd lie outside and stare into the heavens trying to comprehend infinity. I understood, from Dad, that infinity meant it went on forever, that there was no end. My little girl brain couldn't comprehend the idea. I'd lie out there and stare at the sky studded with stars and I'd drift out and out and out trying to find the edge. There HAD to be one. I'd go so far out I'd become scared I'd get lost and never come back to earth. Somehow I'd pulled myself back, feel the safety of the ground under my back, and see warm friendly glow of yellow lantern light through the windows. Infinity would have to wait for another night when maybe I'd be braver.

It still eludes me. 

Though I've never thought of myself as a poet, two constellations inspired "poems." There is, in both of them, the common theme that nothing, not even the constellations, last forever. Everything is finite, ephemeral. Nothing stays the same, everything changes. The first one I wrote in high school, the second one about 10 years later. In a way, they are also poems to my father.

ORION

He is silent, strong,
and patient.
He hunts the bear.
And until Time herself
scatters his stars
he will continue to 
hunt the bear
unafraid, and,
without success.

SCORPIO

And when I gaze 
into the south southwestern sky,
do you see Scorpio as I?
There lies the great sweep,
the curve of tail,
the grand array of stars eternal...
I am reminded of my finiteness,
of numbered days,
but know it is not too late
to relate
the thoughts and feelings 
locked deep within the heart.
And I know too
that Scorpio will have his day,

when all his stars will blow away.

Then he and I 

will understand infinity

and dance 

the cosmic dance

one hundred million million times

as molecules of space dust,

as atoms of ethereal air,

as star, as human,

as all things

both great and rare.

***

Have you ever contemplated infinity? Are you a star gazer?  How many constellations can you recognize? Has your writing ever been inspired by the heavens?