This is a little experience that started late last night and endid with a little poem this afternoon. As a former astronomer, the night sky is as familiar to me as my own back yard, and I spot any anomaly very quickly.
I see two stars
Eyes briefly open
I see two stars.
The clock’s red digits say 3.30,
the sky is full of cloud, except
for two stars.
The sleeping brain clicks on.
Quicker than any word can form
than the next red number comes
a wordless sign lights up,
“something’s wrong!”
Nowhere in the sky,
the familiar as my backyard sky
I know so well
are two stars like that,
equal in brightness,
spaced like that,
at just that angle.
Numbers, numbers, I key in
to the hard disc in my mind.
Tomorrow I will use them, know at last
those two wrong stars that cannot be.
It’s afternoon when I remember.
I open software, move the mouse,
and then I know.
The impossible stars
were not two stars.
One of them was ringed Saturn,
the other Spica.
© MM 25.1.2012
