With Eyes to the Skies

It was a lovely day, the loveliest in a long time, with bright clear skies, as blue as my dreams of June, with a breeze that, despite being a little strong, was warm and fresh. We walked the lake trail with Melissa and Kona, enjoyed the yellow of the grass and the dark of the mud, fragrant and heavy, stopped for ice cream and made promises to do it again soon.

But it was the night that was truly wonderful, nearly as warm as the day, with quiet, still air and a cloudless sky. We have been watching Jupiter hover over Venus, both of them impossibly bright despite their impossible distances. They rise in the west over the mountains just after the sun says his farewells, and stay just far enough away from Orion and his hounds so as to avoid suspicion. They are a welcome sight, warm and playful up there, a darling couple in the dark of March.

But Mars is where my passion has been as of late, as it moves into opposition, which is just a scientific way of saying that the earth has moved directly between it and the sun. It is small in the eastern sky, but you can't miss it. It is red––a deep red––as red as the eyes of the lion Leo, where it rises. It is a remarkable sight, that little cracked globe, and I could hardly tear my eyes away from it on our walk. Duncan does not know it, can't even conceive of it in the same way we do, but I wonder if he can sense its pull on me as he pulls on the leash that tethers us together.

Opposition. What a strange way to say that things are aligned. Duncan and I are aligned many times a day, pulling each other down the sidewalk, the gravity of our bond evident for all to see. Perhaps not as wondrous as the skies, but no less remarkable.

Mars, red and magnificent. As magnificent as my good, red dog. Only so much further away.