an aptly angry archer
pulls taut the bow.
across the sky
the big dipper is empty.
i can’t locate cancer
but i feel it.
and yet a bright beacon
in the western moonless sky!
i don’t know the stars well
but i do read the tao (77)
—
i have a friend who is an astrologer.
she is angry.
i have a friend who is not an astrologer.
she is angry, too.
many seem to be wondering
when will we just let it go?
—
i heard from two friends yesterday about anger. my love and i went for a walk in the cool night air. looking west down our street with all it’s dark houses, we were struck by a perfectly framed, intensely bright planet. (apparently not ours)
looking down at us, as if we didn’t exist, i wondered what was that planet’s name?
we continued our walk down another dark street and saw the archer; one of my favorite constellations. the bow was drawn. aimed at what, i wondered?
just a bit north of east the big dipper, the first constellation i learned as a child, was upside down. no water to cook food on the stove top. not a drop of stardust in it. am i a fool to think our gravity touches it? my perspective?
i didn’t think about cancer until this morning as the poem formed in my morning transition from sleep to wake. why aren’t we angry (less lately) about cancer? one in four is just a statistic?
i spent time mindfully looking into my anger. could i use it to strengthen my immune system? to change my health? to imagine some new work to do? to brighten our planet?
then i thought of Ursula K. Le Guin’s lovely rendition of the seventy seventh tao. the bow of heaven. she also wrote about a lathe.
strange times, these. strange times.