Celestial Siblings

My little sister is camping for the first time

And I’m excited to come along for the ride.

I get to be the one to teach her how to fish,

How to cook a pancake over the fire,

How to catch a frog in the muddy banks of the river,

And all the ways spotting constellations

Is different from spotting shapes in the clouds.

Clouds are unnamed canvases, varying forms that come and go

But the stars have all been named ages ago

By old men with expensive looking glasses, fascinated by mythology

Choosing one and making it your own reclaims it from the past, gives a bit of your identity to an impersonal infinity we cannot comprehend, an electric spider’s web that lights the night and gives form to an empty darkness begging to exist

I know she will find a cluster that looks like a horse.

She loves horses, and animals are a popular choice.

The burning pinpricks that make my eagle are nestled under Castor and Pollux

Gemini, the celestial siblings, sworn upon by the ancients for their infinite bond

In reality, made of different spectra, and separated by light-years, drifting

Farther

Further

Unfeelingly

Apart