My Favourite Constellation Poem by Etienne Charilaou

Last night catching sight of my favourite constellation
was hampered by the waxing crescent moon's light.
Then the ‘V' of Taurus the bull aligned the sky for me,
swiftly the seven sisters came into view - The Pleiades -
like diamonds poured out onto a dark velvety cloth.
Following the line from them through the bull's red eye of Aldebaran,
I came to Bellatrix and next it the red supergiant Betelgeuse,
probably my favourite star because it is as big as a solar system.
The blue-white of Rigel, designating it as hotter than Betelgeuse,
is opposite in a long diagonal. It too is a supergiant star.
Then my eye lights on the distinctive belt,
Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka are the stars' names,
and from the belt hangs the sword, almost at the sword's tip,
a bit of fuzziness marks what we can see without a telescope
of The Great Orion Nebula - every bit as grand as its name sounds.

Then I gaze wonderingly on the whole:
Orion the Hunter, my favourite constellation.