Eta Orionis and The precision of stars

Some time ago, a beautiful blue binary star exploded off the westernmost crest of Orion’s Belt. Her time, as they say, had finally come.

And for a while, the aftermath of this event - the debris and resultant radioactive material - moved out and away into the vast expanse of space that had lain for millennia just beyond her reach.

Now, moving lifeless, mindless, still with that certain precision of stars, she follows a path predetermined by 900 light years of terrestrial anticipation.

And somewhere, on a dreaming planet some distance away, a young biped sits admiring a smallish outcropping of rocks lying at the place where beach becomes ocean. He scans the ground for something, only half expecting to find what he is looking for. And then, there it is. He picks up the dead technology, acknowledges the power it had once given. Wraps it ceremoniously in six blades of greenest grass. Holds it up over his yellow head. Then, in some ritual fashion, welcomes the end of the burning sky and vanishes into the nothingness of Eta’s final embrace.

Quiet - her fire burns in the distance. Moving out and away. Absorbing the milky white tentacles of a forgotten galaxy. Reigniting consciousness in a new way. Oblivious to form in this one moment.

How the rocks did glisten.

Infinitive

Need not come on strong
to need
not come on i
need not come on
to need
not come at all
come not i
to equalize
raise the living
to join
the dead
id been counting blades of greenest grass
to quiet
the voices in my head
when Jane had made her way
across the slow parade
having seen countless particles of matter
tumbling
stuttering to shatter
a new way,
the good road home
when
to listen is
to know
that
we need not come on strong
to need not
come at all.