Amateurs of Heaven by Howard Nemerov
I found this poem because I was intrigued by the title. I was not disappointed when I read the poem. I’ve always thought I’d like to know more about the constellations and spend more time star-gazing, but I’ve never actually done anything to further my knowledge. At least I can pick out Orion, and perhaps I’d consider myself an amateur of heaven. I can’t really describe why I like this poem so much, but the language makes me want to read it many times. I’m drawn to phrases like “idiot majesty” and “ancestral eyes”.
Amateurs of Heaven
By Howard Nemerov
Two lovers to a midnight meadow came
High in the hills, to lie there hand and hand
Like effigies and look up at the stars,
The never-setting ones set in the North
To circle the Pole in idiot majesty,
And wonder what was given them to wonder.
Being amateurs, they knew some of the names
By rote, and could attach the names to stars
And draw the lines invisible between
That humbled all the heavenly things to farm
And forest things and even kitchen things,
A bear, a wagon, a long handled ladle;
Could wonder at the shadow of the world
That brought those lights to light, could wonder too
At the ancestral eyes and the dark mind
Behind them that had reached the length of light
To name the stars and draw the animals
And other stuff that dangled in the height,
Or was it the deep? Did they look in
Or out, the lovers? till they grew bored
As even lovers will, and got up to go,
But drunken now, with staggering and dizziness,
Because the spell of earth had moved them so,
Hallucinating that the heavens moved.
Very good. It strikes a chord because most of us have either done this or wanted to at some point.