Roll-Roycing Round The Sun

Vija Celmins Night Sky 2 Reversed

Having failed to engage with Red Squirrel Week I'm seeking refuge in 'National Poetry Day' today.

The theme this year is Stars.

The poem below is by one of my favourite poets, Norman MacCaig. He stitched precise descriptions of the natural world with a gentle wisdom that just makes me weep.


"Stars and Planets” by Norman MacCaig

Trees are cages for them: water holds its breath
To balance them without smudging on its delicate meniscus.
Children watch them playing in their heavenly playground,
Men use them to lug shops across oceans, through firths.

They seem so twinkle-still, but they never cease
Inventing new spaces and huge explosions
And migrating in mathematical tribes over
The steppes of space at their outrageous ease.

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Roll-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

Vija Celmins Night Sky #18

Two Gods in the Sky

I forgot to get in the washing.  “Dammit, its cold and dark out there.”  I dashed outside and began whipping the pegs off the still wet washing, and then I saw two graceful stars gliding through the night sky; bright, laughing Venus leading Jupiter, lumbering behind reluctantly in the distance.