Antares
time flows faster
with age
as a kid i couldn't wait
for the school day to end
so i can go home and read
my encyclopedias
and do my homework (which i despised)
finishing off the evening with dinner and a shower
but as i got older
time moved faster
and i spent less time yearning
for an event to end
but holding onto the
fading time that I had
left, before things would end
and I would return to monotony
of course depression throws
a wrench into that function
and things drag on agonizingly
as the world melts into apathy
both flying by and moving too slowly
so i would spend my time withering
mentally and physically
caring not how time flowed
=
when i got my PVS-14
and stared out my bedroom window
i was captivated by a tremendously bright star
so bright as to cast a brilliant halo only seen
on streetlights and on the status LEDs
mounted on my computer
so it was surely visible
and antares would peak
alongside ptolemy's cluster and the milky way
the summer would slowly drift by
as first the andromeda galaxy
followed by the pleiadies would
drift into the wee hours of the morning
soon the nights went from humid to crisp
and cygnus no longer occupied the zenith
by then orion was visible early morning
when the skies got dark earlier
extending the visibility of the milky way
before it sunk below the horizon
and the sky became orion's, shared with the hyades
hurtling towards the bleak midwinter
where the weather was cold and
the nights long, but the astronomic objects
distinct and visible for careful observation
=
now the nights grow shorter
and my graduation draws near
i struggle to sleep
perhaps too excited to rest
or too nervous to sleep
but it didn't matter
because i looked out my window
with the flight goggles i built
flipped down the power pack
focused the diopter to my
uncorrected eyes
and saw
antares and the scorpion
once again
the same way I saw
orion during the beginning of
my senior fall
and I realized
all that time
was just the stars
drifting around an axis
unseen and unfelt
yet visible as a slow-motion
clock, a calendar that shifts
imperceptibly from day to day
yet defined the seasons and the
lives of our ancestors
though now man is disconnected from the stars
through synthetic light and
atomic clocks and radio synchronization
and digital calendars
the stars care not how man tells time
thus antares marks
the almost-there
point in time;
a whole year of my life