When we are 20, we worry about what
other people are thinking of us.
When we are 30, we no longer care what they think.
When we are 40, we realize they were not thinking of us at all
--Folk Saying--

I look through the pages of my high school yearbook,
The Blazer.
Gazing at a constellation of 18 year-old faces,
Smiling.

All I know about those visages is what I knew then.
Very little.
Then, I thought I was the Sun; everyone else a trailing nebula.
Everything revolved around me.


Karen Christensen
Beauty can pierce like a pain.
--Thomas Mann--
____________________________

Venus.
Self-confident, glowing. Bohemian. Rich.
If only I looked like Karen.
But nothing will help.


Robert K. Awrey
Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art!
--John Keats--
_____________________________________________

Lucifer.
Smoldering beauty/Sexual menace.
God, I promise that if Robert K. invites me to the prom, I will never ask for anything else, ever again. I will go to High Mass every Sunday, if only Robert K. will invite me to the prom.

Perhaps I should go to Mass on Saturdays as well,
Just to be sure.


Jeremy Naftali
All things are slaves to intelligence.
--Menander--
___________________________________________


Jupiter*.
He thinks that he may be the smartest person who ever lived.
Statistically, of course, he knows that is highly improbable.
After all, there are three billion other people on Earth.
But someone has to be the smartest, don't they?
Why not him?

(I suspect that I am smarter).


Mary Carey Kalahar (my cousin)
The joys of battle.
--Attila the Hun--
________________________________________

Mars.
We are locked in combat.
Every time I pass her in the hall,
I give her one of my famous dirty looks.
I narrow my eyes, Hurling thunderbolts of malice.
I bestow a small patronizing smile.
I drive her crazy.
Now and then she takes the bait, smacking me.
Everyone stares at her. Is she crazy?
I smile with infinite patience.
I have gained the moral highground.
Animal!


Eugene Rowell
Nothing will come of nothing.
--Shakespeare--
_______________________________

A bit of cosmic dust,
Beneath notice.
Funny looking.
Dumb.
Of no importance to anyone.
Who cares about him?


How odd to leaf through those pages,
To look at those sweet luminescent faces
Twenty-five years later.
And to discover how dark my lens.
Not One, but a hundred and twenty-five Suns. All circling in their own orbit.
Sometimes, spinning in different universes.

How could I have missed it?

___________________________________________

*The second brightest planet in the solar system.