Polaris never joins the herd,
Venus always follows mother;
the reckoning of these two staid,
rooted bodies steals attention –
but now I only ask stars how
sunrise could be changed for sunset.
It’s Lyra who I’m waiting for,
Cygnus, winging, following her,
when I can aim myself between
Saturn and elusive Iovis
and fall within your soothing arc;
there is my meridian, also.
Those constants tell my inner tale;
constancy and solitude are
the prisms through which my life casts
varicolored retorts to the
abrading of this ardent world;
and the moon completes the story,
she shows my wayward, shifting cares.
Twelve new circles isn’t many,
just twelve full moons to fill a year;
nine are more than I can wait for,
but are the only measure that
I can find my hope in; so I
must live for full moons for a while.
Now, the present planets suit for
the objects of this displaced gaze –
Bootes and the Borealis
will substitute for your eyes; but
by this searching I have found my
reflection in the sky – I know
Venus always follows mother;
Polaris never joins the herd.
AUTHOR BIO: Maude Larke has come back to writing after years in the university system, analyzing others’ texts and films, and to classical music as an ardent amateur, after fifteen years of piano and voice in her youth. She was the winner of the 2011 PhatSalmon Poetry Prize and the 2012 Swale Life Poetry Competition.