Stars, poem by Marjorie Pickthall

STARS
by Marjorie Pickthall

Now in the West the slender moon lies low,
And now Orion glimmers through the trees,
Clearing the earth with even pace and slow,
And now the stately-moving Pleiades,
In that soft infinite darkness overhead
Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread.
 
And all the lonelier stars that have their place,
Calm lamps within the distant southern sky,
And planet-dust upon the edge of space,
Look down upon the fretful world, and I
Look up to outer vastness unafraid
And see the stars which sang when earth was made. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marjorie Pickthall (1883–1922) was born in England but lived in Canada from the age of seven. She was once considered the best Canadian poet of her generation.

ILLUSTRATION: “Crescent Moon with Earthshine and the Constellation Orion” by David Nunuk. Prints available at allposters.com.

Orion the Hunter, poem by Grace O’Malley

ORION THE HUNTER
by Grace O’Malley

He stands in my doorway
like a cross.
The hunter has come down.
He walks me under street lights
which are more sullen and yellower
than the full moon — its cool
blind eye of bone
and fracture high high above.
His bronze face pure
with starlight or anger
or perhaps love.
“The world
will never be your idea of just
or merciful.”
It all seems one
and I feel it
like an arrow’s blade
at the division between
bone and muscle,
soul and spirit,
like hunger
but more like the craving
after beauty
that is only for brief
apocalyptic
moments satisfied.
Tense
as a bowstring, the
artistry of one straight line,
he walks away
and under the moonlight
is one motion,
flowing up like a spring
from the tendon of the heel.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This poem owes a debt to poet Mary Oliver, who wrote a poem about the constellation Orion coming down out of the sky to talk to her…in my poem the figure of Orion is God. This piece is about me growing up — the necessity of facing the fact that the world is full of evil and injustice, while still holding onto my identity as a person with a moral compass, a person who can relate to God in the midst of an unjust world. It is about the balance in life between knowing that “things just aren’t fair” and living as an individual with integrity anyway. To be a whole person, I think one has to come to terms with these two sides of life. It is also inspired by my habit of long late night walks, sometimes talking to God about the troubles of the world, and sometimes just being with him.

PAINTING: “Orion the Hunter” by Timothy Benz, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

Orion, poem by Mary Oliver

ORION
by Mary Oliver

I love Orion, his fiery body, his ten stars,
his flaring points of reference, his shining dogs.

“It is winter,” he says.
“We must eat,” he says. Our gloomy

and passionate teacher.


                                    Miles below

in the cold woods, with the mouse and the owl, 

with the clearness of water sheeted and hidden,

with the reason for the wind forever a secret,

he descends and sits with me, his voice

like the snapping of bones.


                                    Behind him

everything is so black and unclassical; behind him
I don’t know anything, not even

my own mind.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Oliver (born September 10, 1935) is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as “far and away, [America’s] best-selling poet”. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

PAINTING: “Orion at Cinder Hills Overlook” by Jeremy Perez, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  Learn more about this painting at perezmedia.com.

The Star Splitter, poem by Robert Frost

THE STAR SPLITTER (Excerpt)
by Robert Frost

“You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains,
And rising on his hands, he looks in on me
Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something
I should have done by daylight, and indeed,
After the ground is frozen, I should have done
Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful
Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney
To make fun of my way of doing things,
Or else fun of Orion’s having caught me.
Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights
These forces are obliged to pay respect to?”
So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk
Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming,
Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming,
He burned his house down for the fire insurance
And spent the proceeds on a telescope
To satisfy a lifelong curiosity
About our place among the infinities…

…Read “The Star Splitter” by Robert Frost in its entirety at poetryfoundation.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) was one of the most popular and critically respected American poets of the twentieth century. He received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetical works. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)