Monday, February 5, 2018

**Poem: "Finding Orion" **









Finding Orion

He waits now for boots to be invented,
his solid brass club a paperweight in the book of night.
Barefoot but for a hero’s sandals, Mother Earth,
tired of his roughshod swagger, sent the only creature
to him that he’d never considered a challenge.

“I can kill any beast on earth,” he bragged to Artemis,
who often joined him in the hunt, prowling the
woods together by moonlight and torches,
looking for game, playing by his rules, so simple.

The scorpion’s fine formula burst quickly through his veins,
his anxious heel swollen after just one strike.
Pissing contest aside, his indiscriminate slaughter
of animals and lovers had worn out his mortal welcome.

Commemorated now in the Boulevard of Greek Dreams,
his belt of three bright queens, strong sisters, points towards
dazzling Sirius, radio dog star, unbreakable club at hand.
He lords it over the other stars at midnight, mighty hunter
as before, wherever you find him.

Train your eyes southwest, or northwest if you’re south,
or merely west if you’re at the Equator already, for he is a giant.
The easiest way to find Orion is at dawn, or in the evening.
Like all men, he is full of contradictions.


CAR  2/5/18



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