Dog Days - Aug 30 2020

Dog Days

Aug 30 2020

The dogs days of summer

sound like what they are,

a panting dog

sprawled in a patch of shade

on a sultry windless day.

When crickets chirp lazily,

and sprinklers tick hypnotically,

and even the best tended lawn

is a wan limp green.

But are named for Sirius, instead,

the brightest star

that rises in August

in the constellation Canis.

In an age when we rarely look up,

when the night sky

is so often obscured by light.

I recall my very first view

of the Milky Way,

as a boy of 10

sleeping under the stars

and feeling amazed;

how profuse they were

and how they kept on appearing,

as if materializing

before my eyes.

And here and there a shooting star

that briefly flared and faded,

so the sky

seemed that much more alive.

But saw no constellations.

Perhaps because

I was not searching for gods

or patterns

or to make it make sense

but took it for what it was,

a vast glittering dome

composed of dense absorbent blackness

and brilliant pinpoints of light,

no two quite the same.

And perhaps because children accept

things just as they are,

before growing up

and seeking order

and imposing their worldview,

assigning names

as if to somehow assert control.

A clear night

with a chill in the air.

When the dogs days

will soon be over,

when the grass will brown

and the dog scratch at the door

to come in from out of the cold.

When the brightest star

might just as well be nameless

but would shine just as well.