Once And Future Witness. 

In old Arabia, whose civility outlives its modern terrors,
there were mapped, amongst others, three stars.
Alnitak. Alnilam. Mintaka.
Pearls on the belt that girdles the hunter.

In some distant day,
having transcended the limits of light,
bringing end to abstractions of constellation,
someone's descendants turn on a star drive,
facing Orion on a hunt of their own.

They leap through light,
a narrowing corruscating belt of jewelled fire
that girdles their ship.
The view ahead becomes a radionic blast.
For a moment there is deep death behind.
Then they are still, protected, screened
from a space beyond beauty and strangeness and charm.

On some of those screens they watch Orion warp.
His right shoulder hurtles by high on the port side,
thrown like a dirty ruby.
Then the other one bolts to starboard in a blue blaze.
His head rises slowly on a stretch of unseen neck
as his left foot starts to wander.
But amidst the hysteria of twisted barbarity
are reminders of enduring civility.
Bright against the stellar drift,
growing and still unmoved:
Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.