The Ancient Modern
Celestial Cartography / Joshua Alan Sturgill
Some orient themselves by lines
on paper maps, and some by signs
along the concrete roads they walk.
Some men think by precepts taught
in classrooms under artificial light.
But I can’t figure where I am, til night
reveals the stars. What better clock
to tell the time? Or door to knock
upon, when asking for the real East,
the address of that endless Feast?
Not the East of compass turning, no!
—the ever-East, were dawn is burning
always, on the Planets and the Moon,
who blush, embarrassed, drunk at noon.
Their dance, a spiraled inspiration;
it calls to me, a wild, cosmic invitation.
Some are looking for the next event;
some wonder where the money went;
and some are looking for relief,
for any moment free of grief. And
I am, likewise, shadowed by the Earth.
So I’ll align my life with Heaven’s mirth
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