Turn Left at Orion

Another one for National Poetry Day. I used to do a fair bit of amateur astronomy so this is where this poem came from.

There was an astronomy book, titled, Turn Left at Orion!

Turn left at Orion – forty years ago

I tried my best to follow directions

but the vast empty spaces proved

difficult to navigate. The hero’s belt pointed somwhere:

go straight on at Gemini, turn right at Taurus; going by the book

I was at home splitting double stars and measuring

eclipsing binaries, but still wobbled

when I came down to earth. How I longed

to feel solid ground beneath my feet.

*

Today I wander into my back yard and greet

constant Orion again but know eventually

the pattern will change, that his belt will loosen,

that even a Greek hero will drift apart.