Mythmaking

It was Orion you were searching out

amid the cedar and oak, somewhere

above he was, you thought, he should

be visible.

And for a few minutes, he was

everywhere. Every string of three stars could

be his belt, every curve his bow, every

faint dot his Betelgeuse arm-pit,

an old red dot that could’ve ruptured

into supernova a million years ago

and we’d yet to know.

The band of the milky way

was visible and it was the first time I

had looked for it. The first time I had

seen it. Or believed it could be seen.

And soon you found Orion,

inverted, feet pushing up against the sky

like reverse Atlas and hunting Taurus

standing on his head. It

was an odd night, but beautiful

and Orion standing on his

head, bow

drawn, sash

taut, you

laughed, and

I laughed and then we agreed

we couldn’t make Taurus out.

--RFRY, 09 Jun 06

This is a version of Mythmaking. It is most closely related to Mythmaking v3c.