Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No. 39 Sirius

SIRIUS

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky due to its relative nearness (8.6 light years) and its brightness (intrinsically 25 times as bright as our sun). In fact, it has a tiny white dwarf companion star, difficult to see due to the brightness of the main star that even in a small telescope it is remarkably bright. This poem is a reflection upon that experience of viewing it. Sothis is the Greek version of its Egyptian name. 

SIRIUS

I turn the white tube of the telescope

upon that brightest, white, white star

and see far in the far

a blaze of light, its brilliance finer

than any jewel or precious stone

that shines by stolen glow alone.

Bright Sothis, Sirius, you are

all the sky’s most splendid star.

The old sky-lining of

Hellenic legend drew you as

the dog star, the hound’s eye of

the greater, faithful creature following

Orion, the hunter through

the turning of the night.

And in ancient Egypt's lore

you were seen as sacred star,

one whose rising in the palest wash

of the hushed, dawn-hinting sky

beckoned coming flooding of the Nile.

You are still to sight

greatest star in all the night,

brightest far sun in the darkness.

Our cultures, civilisations, go and come,

yet you shine on, oh, distant sun,

across the paths of harbouring vastness,

across time's endless transformations.

I gaze in awe and dimly feel

affinity to being, boundless and

beyond these thoughts.