By David Roth
© 5th April, 2005
I saw it for the first time
When I was but a child,
And we became friends
Companions on a strange voyage
Through space and time
Stopping now and then
To nod a silent greeting
And then continuing on,
Swallowed up
By the velvet folds of night.
Orion’s belt, my father said
As he pointed to the straight line
Of three stars
High in the summer sky,
And he lifted his horn to his lips.
‘When You Wish Upon A Star’
Never sounded so wondrous,
So sultry, so sensuous, so deific,
Nor has it ever since.
I glanced back from my new friend
To my father,
Horn cradled lovingly in one hand,
Me, cradled lovingly in the other,
And I whispered to the sparkling light,
“Some day I’m coming to see you.”
Of course, I never did.
But I never forgot my friend.
Long after the smooth tones
Of my Father’s horn
Were little more
Than a child’s longing memories,
I would see my friend,
And think of that day
So long ago.
And whether under a southern sky
A hundred miles from nowhere
Milky-way so bright you could walk
Without the need for artificial light,
Or from the window of a flying tube
Forty-thousand feet above both
Ocean and clouds,
So close it seemed parallel
To my tiny viewing port.
Whether tropical swamp
Or Dutch forest,
My friend was always there.
And I saw it again tonight,
Winking back at me
Across time and space
As if to say
I haven’t forgotten you either,
Old friend,
Or the sound of your Father’s horn
The night we first became friends.
And I miss him too.
