Venus Ablaze in the January Sky. (New Version)

High over my suburban garden
Venus turns on her white light
of love
to interrogate the darkness
that almost obscures her less than
brilliant companion,
the fecund but murderous Mars,
Snug in her charms, but addicted
to war,
& tonight, lacking her pristine charisma,
waiting unnerved to be nudged into view
from under the vigilant scimitar
of the moon.

And I wonder if this rare, and fleeting
moment,
is also plainly visible to you,
that is, if adhering to your grandmother`s
custom,
the bedroom curtains have been left
tied open
as you lie, wide awake in your single bed,
your map of the stars slid flat beneath the pillow,
the Milky Way tap dancing in your eyes.

I bought your aunt the caravan that you
live in
a full twelve months ago
when the spiky wind was tearing through
the hedgerows
and oaks were split in two;
and yet I have not trudged the rutted
track ways
that bypass the pond and farmyard to your door
once in those twelve long months,
the book on Botticelli that I bought you
wrapped safely in gilt paper.

I am too much of the city man
to dwell far out of town
for more than one full week,
and yet tonight although all England sleeps
dog tired and dark between us,
the scimitar moon cuts cloth above our heads
in equal measure,
and glinting through a pin prick in crushed silk
Venus scintillates both our hearts with light.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 3rd. - 5th. - 6th. 2017.

Tonight, 4th. January, Venus was even more clearly visible over London, but Mars was relatively pale and indistinct. The crescent Moon was searingly bright.