Sky Fossils

Plunging forward as well as falling down
Go the stars of all the ancient fables
Like those of Arabic or Greek renown
Or tracked with care in Alfonsine tables.
Steeped in radiative lore and meaning
And coursing their eccentricity vectors,
Amid all of that galactic careening,
They beautify infinity's midnight sectors
And all those orbits, oscillatory or not,
Would play all night upon a shepherd's brain
And tease out all kinds of inspired thought
To settle into some spectral refrain
All about now famous constellations
That once were fixed with fresh appellations.