Sam Garvan

my father as a constellation

He once announced a sort of alphabet
whose letters could be traced out only in the dark.

A hunter standing vast above our house,
the dogs beside him 
casting the sky for hares.

A queen next in a drunken throne.
Her left shoe indicating storms,

right shoe missing.

Frost underfoot, we found the hare,
safe in a hollow of the night,

the smaller of two lions
trapped in a tree,

everything nameable had its place,
shepherds, sailors, swarms of bees.

And so each night I rise, 
    get dressed, 
        set quietly forth,
take up the handle of the plough and with it 
steer the whole sky round

seeking my father in the east,
the east, the west,
    the south, the north.

Sam Garvan's work is published or forthcoming in anthologies and journals  including Scintilla, The North, Poetry Salzburg Review, Thorax, Iota,  etcetera.  He has a Ph.D. from London University and works for a  London beekeeper.