Unnamed Sky

"Why should he seem to see Andromeda,
Cepheus and Cassiopeia?
"
--The Swimmer, John Cheever
[IMAGE]

Under someone else's sky
he watches missiles of debris enter the atmosphere.
Am I under or above, he wonders, or beside?
Groups of stars whose names
he knew once and had forgotten
Gathered in futile constellations,
solely from where he stood.

There were other skies to reference, he knew.
He could run to the Pawnee sky
on finding his own sky meaning nothing.
But would he find the Pleaid's seventh star?

An open sky, he thought,
indifferent to measurement,
Pale--of another dream--
from a galaxy's edge.

If only I could measure, he thought,
these quadrants of my desire.
And name them for what they are
above, or beside,
inside-out stellar attachments.
The bold sketch of their composure

And yes,
find someone to enter by the gate
that is the worth of naming.


Copyright ©1994, James A. Gardner
jag@rahul.net
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