Calculation

We have within our sky an orbit taken
By Greenwich time,
The larger orders of the stars forsaken.

Rising in afternoon and setting due
South in two minutes or thereabout thereafter,
This body has no dark or light ensue,

But makes in its regular coursing unstellar hum,
Marking by sound, by heavier silence after,
The way it has come.

Credit

From Collected Poems, 1930–83. Copyright © 1983 by Josephine Miles. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.