I find tremendous wonder and comfort looking up at the night sky. I always have. I remember as a child, my grandfather, who has since passed away telling me about the stars and how he used them to navigate his small sailboat, the one he had made himself. Looking back the boat seem small, but as child it was a floating house.
These days satellites and technology are what most use to find their way out on the open ocean. But there is comfort in knowing you can look up on a clear night, find the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, as it is known in nerdier circles; and let it point you to Polaris; then you will know your way because you will know north, and as such all the other directions of the compass rose, provided you too were nerdy enough to put them to memory.

Living in the northern hemisphere, we are also treated to the return of Orion and his solar rhinestone hunting belt every fall. Three vibrant stars in a row give the constellation away, as the hunter rises from the horizon. From Orion, we can then find Taurus and the Pleiades, but not before making a wish that Betelgeuse will explode. No, not a hung-over looking Michael Keaton in stripped pyjamas, but the swollen, gassy red giant of a star that doubles as Orion's shoulder on the shooting arm. Fingers crossed we hope Betelgeuse will go supernova within our lifetime, that we might catch the rarest and brightest stellar events.

Orion Splintered

springtime
in the northern kingdom
the Pleiades shelter behind the glare
of a temperamental solar veil
Orion hunkers down
spent from the chase
he bides his time …

a revolving piece of infinity
a glint of a grain
in splintered stardust sand

Orion vows …
his chance will come again
the light will fade

Aldebaran will fall to Bellatrix’ arrow
Taurus will finally yield the way
the huntsmen will have his pick of sisters

the seven laugh
the bull raises his horns in mirth

time is on the marksman’s side
but still he mutates like the rest
the growth will go supernova
Betelgeuse splint a shooting arm
in a gravitational sling
the mighty hunter will loose his aim
submit to inevitability ...

a revolving piece of infinity
a glint of a grain
in splintered stardust sand

To Earth, Betelgeuse is unthinkably large; to the universe the red giant is nothing but an over heated marble. To the imagination, both the Earth and our second favorite massive ball of fusion, both the Earth and Betelgeuse easily are contained in a momentary thought. That is the thing about us creative types, our minds are roomy and hungry, as all, always consuming new ideas and spewing out new artistic attempts like the messiest event horizon.

Where does it all come from? Was there a thought Big Bang that started it all. Or was there a mind that always was? But I am getting tangental.

We have ideas and information to build on. Everything comes from what came before, but first, even the most full and knowledgeable mind must find space, and trust in meta-formed ideas, if it is to create something new. An artist, a poet, must let go of her thoughts, preconceptions and biases, herself, her ego, to allow the chaos, seemingly unattached ideas and image jumbles to find form, function, meaning, and even beauty. It is an intimacy and a vulnerability because one is not sure where she will end up or what she will discover.

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