Cathy Ross – POET – “QUESTIONS FOR THE STARS”

Do the stars know

they have names?

Do they realize

that we have made them

into dot-to-dot pictures,

the sort of thing we humans

do to make sense of what

we don’t understand?

Would they be surprised

to find they are silhouettes

of scorpions, chariots, dragons,

swans, twins, and warriors?

Would they enjoy the stories

of how they came to be:

the clever fox who fell in love

with a star, the drinking gourd

that led slaves to freedom,

the dog who sprinkled cornmeal

to make the Milky Way?

And do they smile down at us

when they hear us sing

“How I wonder what you are?”