Star Census
by Pat Tompkins
Imagination to create
Science to catalog
Where no systems exist, we invent them:
Four directions, seven heavens, nine orders of angels, twelve signs
in the zodiac.
Curiosity
to define
Language to order
Chaos and cosmos are cousins:
We try to count the stars but lose ourselves among them.
We measure distances we can't comprehend.
What's a light year or two between friends?
Copyright © 2006, Pat Tompkins
Image Credit: Atlas céleste de Flamstéed, U.S. Naval Observatory Library
Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Her stories, essays, and poems have appeared in the Paumanok Review,
flashquake, Orbis, the Bellevue Literary Review,
and other publications.