Missing Orion, but he will soon return to the Northern Hemisphere skies…
(I) ORION AT TWENTY
After meditating in Neolithic darkness
A tranquil universe is born
While camping at the folk festival
Guitars and violins
Chants and poems echo
With a new moon making visible
Stars and planets joining Orion
In his nightly romp up high
Through the speckled night sky
Venus, Mars, Pleiades
(Those seven sisters smiling upon us)
(II) ORION AT FORTY:
When Orion peels himself off
The black backdrop of the celestial ceiling
And his dog Sirius herds him to my door
I will shake the star-dusted golden glitter
From the halo of hair that I wear free and curly
And as the earthy music soars and sinks
While minor chords weave a robe so warm
I will sharpen the dagger hanging from his waist
And welcome the result of being chased
By the winter Star Man who has come at last…
(III) ORION AT SIXTY
Navy blue Southern sky so reachable
Here he is, once again, tonight
Stretched out, over my head
My legs apart, as wide as his
Dog at my heels
Lift my arms and double high five him
Balance deserts as I stumble into a terracotta pot of ginger
No dignity in old age
But my hands, for a brief blink of time, touched the stars
© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), Parallel Universe Café and Other Poems, Wildsound Video read by performer
poeturja 
This was excellent! The last section especially, “No dignity in old age
But my hands, for a brief blink of time, touched the stars” really hit home in a great way.
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Thanks! That really did happen one night and I felt so moved that I wrote it as a separate poem (all three are actually written on different nights).
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Its great how you were moved to create them.
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Orion is the only star cluster my feeble eyes have ever been able to recognize as a constellation (I’m still looking for the Big Dipper!) In my travel diaries I called it the Hot Pants Constellation, because… it looked like a pair of hot pants in my 20 year old 70s perception.
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“Hot Pants” is a wonderful name! I originally called the 3rd part of the poem “High Fiving Orion” because he’s so accessible. My guess is, if he could laugh from your nickname, he’d laugh in delight 🙂
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He is the most discernible constellation, I think. But most of us just see what we imagine, not his real designation. High five. Exactly!
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Ah, I love this, Clarissa…life progressing with the stars. I have to say, though, I’m not looking forward to Orion at 80. 😕
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I can just hear us, MC (“Orion? Is that the good-for-nothing that lives next door to me?”) 😀
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😁
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A great mystical feeling Clarissa, with the time lapse capturing the enduring mystery and magic of Orion. 💛 I don’t know why it’s so alluring, it’s just a bunch of stars 🙂 , but it even appears in Rutger Hauer’s famous soliloquy in Bladerunner: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…” ⭐️
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Thank you, Steve! Saw Bladerunner years ago and at the time, lived in the city where Orion was rarely visible. Always wished I could and that is one of the few that came true 🙂
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