Only One Of You Poem by gershon hepner

But there’s only one of you, they say
you are a single star
which is the only truth
I know and it’s uncouth
to wonder if there are
others like you in my Milky Way

I can see you with my naked eye
your nuclear fuel is not
exhaustible it seems
replenished by your dreams
and mine, I hope, as hot
as Sirius A when shining in the sky

Inspired by an article on W.S. Merwin by Helen Vendler in NYR, March 26,2009, reviewing the new collection of poems, “Shadow of Sirius, ” by this 81-year old “poet of the punctuationless short poem lacking (after its first line) initial capitals, a poem spoken to nobody within hearing distance, spoken to the air” (“Defender of the Earth”) :
Merwin is less inclined to solve his (insoluble) enigmas than to turn them around, observing them angle by angle. He does not, for instance, explain the title of the new volume. There is no poem in it called 'The Shadow of Sirius, ' and the phrase does not appear anywhere in the book. Some readers may recall a 2005 poem called 'To the Dog Stars, ' beginning 'But there is only one of you / they say, ' which sheds light on the reappearance of Sirius here. The curious reader can turn to Google, and discover that Sirius A, the brightest star in the sky, has a small, dim (but much hotter) companion called Sirius B, a 'white dwarf, ' which in the past was more massive and luminous than its brother, Sirius A, but which has now exhausted its nuclear fuel.

3/21/09