Poem - Barney - Pleiades

    The Pleiades

 
There is a tarnish slurring that abyss.
More honestly, the reek of city men
that fogs our billion-leagued, our vaulting look,
and glazes the most willing eye.  Time comes when
you slip that pall and find a country air,
you see the Pleiades, the sisterhood.
Lying at ease by night under the stare
of unobstructed stars, you know the hour
the Pleiades arise, in all their sevenness.
Nothing has been added:  when the city five
or faintly, six, your eye will blink and guess
at eight and even nine.  There is no end
to Pleiades, once in their element,
no limit how the mind with fire is streaked
clear of that cloud, that sloven cataract.                                               

by William D. Barney

 
Included in  Long Gone to Texas
Publisher:  Nortex Press, Austin, Texas 1986
ISBN:  0-89015-545-3
 

As Heard on Texas Poets Podcast, October, 2015