Telescoping

Dusk, and the old observatory waits

brick-round, and domed like the shrine of a creed.

She holds memories of mechanical times,

and pre-electronic, pre-digital determination,

for her workings are all cog and pulley,

tended by human mind and muscle,

and yet, with the roof slats slid open

to the night, the old eye still tilts right up

and impressive, out to the southern sky,

drawing in constellations, or calling down

Sirius, there; a binary star: Dog Star.

They studied binaries from this hilltop,

over-looking Johannesburg, a city grown

beyond knowing herself, on the high-veldt.

Outside, the stone-crafted library is small

and still against the African autumn sky;

while inside, upon the rails that spin

the whole complex mechanism around,

turning the sky, swivelling constellations

until she finds out our southern cross,

upon these rails three rock pigeons roost

and coo, slow to react to the creeping wheels

until I think the turning cogs will crush them:

but they skip off, in time, and live to brood

and nest another day in this old place,

where darkness is sprinkled with the seed

of stars, that focus here; where speculating

minds brood upon mysteries brought within.