Staring Skyward
Rand Michaels
Rand is a third-year student at ESF studying Environmental Education and Interpretation with a minor in writing. He grew up in Northern Michigan and has interests in journalism, sustainable agriculture and all things plants.
Arcturus
Leader of the lucida in their nightly procession,
The key: receiver of lightning
And Bootes’ figurehead
Lighting the way for the loud one
Who drives Ursa Major through the celestial fields
Around and around Polaris
Perceived as the sky’s one constant
But observation fails us,
Reporting its plurality as one
Revealing dynamism as the one universal truth
While Vega occupies the evening zenith
Serenading its observers
With light as the lyre
Of Orpheus once charmed Hades
Too little to win back
Eurydice from the dead
The strings of Lyra can be drawn
To Altair and Deneb
And their great birds
Ascended from Stymphalia
Forming a symbol of summer.
