Northern Cross

Where I’ve ended up the Southern Cross

is still  low in the sky.   I can see it but

only a as marker that says, this way south. 

I’m still not near, it seems, to those

South Sea Isles that young men like me

use to dream of.

And I’m a long way from where I grew up,

too, but now my desire is to return and not go

forward, so when I navigate it’s my memory

of the seasons, not the stars that I often use.

I remember winters that were cold beyond

belief and summers too hot for anyone to ever

try to think.  But most of all I remember

the shorter east and west arms of spring and fall.

I remember spring as being cold and wet

with glistening street lights at night and

hardwood trees that sawed in the dark

trying to bud and bring forth new leaves.

I remember fall as a field of uncut hay

tousled like uncombed hair and

with stalks encased in frozen dew

that glistened in the morning sun.

To get home I do not use an astrolabe,

compass, chronometer, loran or GPS.

At night I just close my eyes and look

straight up at the great Northern Cross

of seasons in a north-country sky and say

star light, star bright, first star I see tonight . . .

FG 1 December 2012

All rights reserved by the author Forrest Greenwood

Happy Holidays from Thailand!  The Thai word for snow is “hema”.  That they have a word for snow is more amazing, I think, than the Eskimos who have so many words for it.