Apr

26

The Hunter And The Hunted.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

April 26, 2007 |

Most evenings at this time of year I can stand on my front porch and look up at the constellation Orion hanging over the horizon, conspicuous because of the brightness of its stars Betelgeuse (the shoulder), Rigel (in his left leg), Bellatrix, many other bright stars, as well as the Orion nebula. In mythology Orion was a demigod and hunter who fell in love with Merope, daughter of the king of Chios. The king disapproved of Orion and had him blinded. He went to live with Artemis, and when he died he was placed among the stars.

Here’s a poem by Adrienne Rich from her book Collected Early Poems: 1950-1970 (W.W. Norton, 1995).

Orion

Far back when I went zig-zagging
through tamarack pastures
you were my genius, you
my cast-iron Viking, my helmed
lion-heart king in prison.
Years later now you’re young

my fierce half-brother, staring
down from that simplified west
your breast open, your belt dragged down
by an oldfashioned thing, a sword
the last bravado you won’t give over
though it weighs you sown as you stride

and the stars in it are dim
and maybe have stopped burning.
But you burn, and I know it;
as I throw back my head to take you in
an old transfusion happens again:
divine astronomy is nothing to it.

Indoors I bruise and blunder,
break faith, leave ill enough
alone, a dead child born in the dark.
Night cracks up over the chimney,
pieces of time, frozen geodes
come showering down in the grate.

A man reaches behind my eyes
and finds them empty
a woman’s head turns away
from my head in the mirror
children are dying my death
and eating crumbs of my life.

Pity is not your forte.
Calmly you ache up there
pinned aloft in your crow’s nest,
my speechless pirate!
You take it all for granted
and when I look you back

it’s with a starlike eye
shooting its cold and egotistical spear
where it can so least damage.
Breathe deep! No hurt, no pardon
out here in the cold with you
you with your back to the wall.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Get Sirius. : Just Write on October 2, 2008 12:17 am

    […] walnuts start rolling around the sidewalks. And then, one morning, I look to the South and see Orion. It’s probably been there for weeks, maybe a month or more and I’ve just been oblivious to it. […]

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