Orion

Stars rising like something said, something never
To be forgotten, shining forever--look

How still they are.

Blind hunter crawling
Toward sunrise, then healed.

He opened his eyes to find her waiting

--Afraid--and together they traveled
Lightly: requiring nothing

But a sense that the road beneath them stretched
Forever. At the edge

He entered the water, swam so far
That he became a speck: his body

Washed ashore, then raised to where we see it now--
The belt, the worn-out sword. I'm not

Afraid--

Except that there is nothing beneath us,
No ground without fear. The body vulnerable

--You can look at me--

The body still now, never
Changing, rising forever--stay--

Like something said.

--James Longenbach