this is Vega
the harp star in the lyre of Orpheus
twenty five light years away

a young star spinning so fast
it swells at its waist
and we look down upon its pole

the first star after the sun
to be caught on a photograph
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1850

the weaver girl of the summer sky
at her loom by the river of heaven
the cowherd on the far bank

around 12,000 BCE
Vega was our pole star
and the pole is walking back to her
