"alnitak" poems
alnitak is the leftmost star in Orion's Belt.
it is located approximately 817 light years away.
that's 10,799,034,810,538,287 miles.
one day you asked me how much i loved you and i told you i loved you from here to alnitak, but you became puzzled and brushed me off.
as an astronomy major i live for the stars.
i love them.
each one is unique.
as a side effect, i often times find myself comparing people to stars, writing their bodies as constellations, their tongues as asteroid belts.
but with you it was different. you weren't just a constellation to me.
GN-z11 is the oldest and most distant known galaxy in the observable universe.
even with all that competition, you still somehow, made yourself to be the largest thing i could fathom. your arms wrapped around me like overgrown tree branches reaching up to hold the night sky in place. i felt warm in your grasp.
if a meteor decided to fall from the sky it was okay, because as long as i could keep you, the entire world could burn for all i care.
Stars run on hydrogen fuel. When stars fuse hydrogen into helium, they burn, releasing heat and light. when they run out of helium, they begin to expand and explode, causing them to become a red giant.
when you stopped loving me, i ran out of helium. i began to explode.
my inner thoughts and feelings of regret blasted around inside me at light speeds, looking for a source of fuel. but you were my fuel and you were nowhere to be found.
i turned into a red giant.
after you left,
all my eyes ever saw was red.
i saw red in the happy couples on the subway.
in the lady who brings muffins to lecture on Thursday nights.
even in my mother when she asked how my life was going.
after becoming a red nova, a star cools to a white dwarf, and a black. when a large star dies, it has so much mass that after the helium is used up, it still has enough carbon to fuse it into heavy elements like iron. When the core turns to iron, it no longer burns. The star’s gravity causes it to collapse, and then it explodes into a supernova. What’s left of the core can form a neutron star or a black hole.
and that's what you left me.
we were a bright glimmering star that illuminated the eyes of people around the globe. but we're nothing now.
nothing can compare to the way you made me light up.
now I'm a black hole.
I'm hungry for you.
i hunger for you.
i crave you.
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 11:44 PM UTC
This Earthly life is lived in the now,
between what was and what will be.
Yet the Stars above our heads that glow
might, long since, become history.
Consider, son, Orion's Belt
that dominates the Winter sky.
You can't mistake its three bright stars
or fail to find them if you try.
Alnitak in Orion's belt, a familiar
Longtime Nighttime show,
dispatched these photons we observe
about eight Hundred years ago.
A brief elapse in cosmic time
but time enough for a star to die:
Dwindle to a little dwarf or
Explode as Novae in the sky.
Still, at night, above our head
its kindly light will still shine on
Perhaps for years or decades hence
Long after Alnitak is gone.
These words of mine you now consign
as just a foolish waste of time
I hope shine forth my love of you
Long after I write my last line.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 8:02 AM UTC
I let my dog out back and watch him
because it’s cold out and I’m
not wearing a shirt
my arms are crossed and I watch
as he disappears in the inky blackness
and I turn to the sky
Mintaka Alnilam Alnitak
eyes drawn to Sirius
and back
to Betelgeuse and Bellatrix
Rigel Saiph
The Pleiades, and
I like to pretend I can find
Procyon
My ******* and my hands press closer
to the glass, and it is freezing
yet my eyes are locked on the left of
Orion,
at a star I don’t know
nearly blinding with its luminosity
a planet, but one I do not know
and it thrills me
This is how planets are discovered
I think
anomalies in the sky that
make man wonder
it is bright and beautiful and my face is
against the window
my breath fogs the glass
yet still I see the nameless Star—
and I open the door, to bring myself
closer, to war the cold
in hopes that being near will
fill me with knowledge and that
elusory star will tell me its name
And my dog, invisible in the night,
jumps back from the door and looks
reproachfully at me
and I stare at that gorgeous sky
and my naked skin is already shivering
and my arms cross against my chest
as I turn and go back
inside,
staring at the Pleiades and Orion,
and that white-hot star
once more.
Dec 3, 2010
Dec 3, 2010 at 7:16 PM UTC
Cheerio, cheerio
Four AM they call to keep the awake awake
And lull the slumbering deeper adream
Clutching vapors of the musky night
Cool, humid, starry eve
Betelgeuse humming a tune
Rigel entranced by the melody
Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka belting along
While the nightbirds
While away the hours, embedded
Deep in the canopy of springtime maples
And chirp, and chirp, and chirp the expanse
Singsonging to insomniacs
******* of blue, red, orange, all grey
Parading the atomic clock onward
And every night they chirrup
Never before two o’clock- why at such a time
As the deadzone of slumbering night?
And there goes the first
Cheerio, cheerio
Good night, good morning nightbirds.
Feb 27, 2015
Feb 27, 2015 at 4:33 PM UTC
An open road, one lone walker
A black clear sky, Orion's Belt
Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka
Viewed in the early night sky
Constellations scattered
A full moon sits high
The eye is distracted by
The light
The road so bare
Not a soul to be seen
Guided by thoughts
Alone
Turning a corner onto
The narrow back track
Homeward bound, no end
To this, journey that started
With just one step
Into the abyss, a distant
Wanderer, who'd always
Be lost.
© Sia Jane
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 9:00 PM UTC
we have watched them evermore wage war upon poor Εγκέλαδος
y cada vez más the fiends forge forth forgotten and i
and i despair y para siempre lacrimaré
o! γαΐα! but that thy fruit
from beauteous brought to biting,
from agreeable to aspish and acerb so afar
from the bough would only cast off
from its folly at कुरुक्षेत्र and grow
from the waste of блокада Ленинграда и Бикини атолл
towards the comfort of my flame nebula [NGC 2024/Sh2-277]
strewn soft about alnitak[ζ Ori] en Friggs rokkehode
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 11:38 AM UTC