STRANGE APPROXIMATIONS

Jupiter,
you jolly fellow,
I see you there,
eastward to zenith,
brightening my winter.

You are in Gemini this year
(or so we say)
hobnobbing with the Twins.
Or I wonder now,
I wonder,
do you even know them?
Do they know you?
Are you friends with Castor,
with Pollux and their gang?
Or are you simply passing by,
rubbing shoulders in the crowd,
jostling each other in the great
busy department store
of the stellar metropolis?

Do you invite them over
for afternoon coffee
when blue skies hide your wanderings?
Or are there others
more to your liking,
other fiery folk
of a more congenial
camaraderie?

I know what it’s like for me —
many of the dear embraceables
are far away from me,
and many of those in earshot
are distant from my heart.

Anyway, Jupiter,
light-years divide you
from those we fancy close
on the celestial map.
Is it the same for me, then?
Is proximity a myth?
A trick of birth and fantasy,
and of the telling over and over
of fictional perspective?

Am I a dweller in
my casual birthplace?
Or do I, absent the knowing of it,
inhabit another city,
resting my troubled head
in the lap of a lover whose name
I have forgotten.

              

 Ted Black, 12/23/2013