Planetarium

by Midge Goldberg

The gears begin to whir, and stars go wheeling
at triple-time to rush the seasons by,
from winter into summer, Gemini
chasing Orion, Sirius still heeling
as he flies. And we, we hang on, reeling,
half-dreaming to be flung off at the sky,
hurtling, untethered, toward coruscant high
infinity projected on the ceiling.

And then they stop. The Zeiss programmed for nine,
peepers piped in — it seems like early June.
The night is always clear here, marked and mapped,
each constellation drawn in line by line.
This sky within a sky a mock cocoon,
we sit back in our chairs, cushioned, rapt.

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Zeiss: the machine in the center of the planetarium
that projects the images

Midge Goldberg’s poems have appeared in Measure, First Things, Dogwood, Alehouse, Cadenza, and other publications. She was a finalist for the 2008 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her first book of poetry, Flume Ride, was published in 2006 by David Robert Books. She lives in Derry, N.H. More information can be found at www.midgegoldberg.com.
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Pat Jones
Published 2 January 2011