imagine how the reddest things are redder
than can be seen with unclothed eyes,  or
if your mind is not strong enough imagine
a giant pretending to be the hunter’s hand
in a story told by an illiterate wisdom
to a child grown into ancient bones
whose name is forgotten to even the stones.

imagine how the most distant things are seen
and dreamt, and prayed upon as we hunt
the night for better days ahead. or
if your prayers are not strong enough, whisper
an explosion in the next million years
that tells the story of now, 643 years in the telling.

imagine how being the 9th brightest feels
— brilliant among the brilliant and known
to be strong enough to draw back
and let loose and lead the hunt for that certain place
enrapt by that skewed belt and memorialized
by hewn rock on Egyptian sands.  Please

imagine the reddest things, then imagine redder things
too red to be seen by unclothed eyes, and this
this imagining, this will be the physics that binds us
soul to soul, eye to eye and dream to dream.
This will be the quarry caught. The prey we prayed
and found and knew and meant when we said Betelgeuse.