Light Years

I don't speak the language of chiromancy
or the language of astromancy, though I know

both derive divinations by examining the maps
of the hand, or the movements of celestial 

objects through space. The month of my birth 
is September, and aster is the star flower 

assigned to it. An asterism is a group of stars, 
any one of those you might see on the ceiling 

of the night sky as they form the shapes of hunters, 
animals, domestic implements. Bear, water dipper,

belt— Emblems hang on distant limbs in the tree
of heaven. Each hides a heart or a mouth insisting

on the usefulness of light produced by bodies, despite 
the impossibility of knowing if they are still alive.