Unsteady Star

The comet NEOWISE has been in our sky lately. I have yet to see it. In a different part of the heavens a large star in the Constellation of Orion may be in trouble, and that one is visible to the naked eye.



Unsteady Star


Betelgeuse, a beguiling superstar
in Orion and more strapping
than our sun, flickers like a stuttering

lightbulb from flashes of brilliance
to funks of murkiness,
revealing erratic pulsations
of an unstable patient.

Burning, churning
and expending its fuel,
pressured by internal shadows,
destined for collapse, perhaps.

But this extrasolar luminary,
tagged as semi-regular, may merely
be dimming randomly, puckishly

like my friend when he chose to scorn
his bipolar meds.

But the star a survivor, not a postscript
                                                  thus far.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor