Love to the Nameless

Once, a time before today,

I’ve said how marvelous are the names bestowed upon stars.

A name as grand as Beta Cassiopeia sparks such life, almost personality, within a star.

Such honor does it bestow on these radiant bodies of light.

But since such a time, I have come to realize a fact I find quite saddening.

Only a select few hundred stars are honored with such names.

The rest are given names that aren’t really names at all.

There is no honor nor life in the name XTE J1650-500.

No care nor craft was put into a name such as that.

There is no love there.

So we are left with with the idea that only the most brilliant,

The biggest and brightest are worthy of life, of honor.

But I must ask the question,

If every unnamed star was to flicker out, to fade from the sky,

What would be left?

We would have then a sky lacking of beauty.

A stoic black curtain, penetrated by only a handful of lonely lights.

And so I seek to fill that sky, to fill it once more with splendorous radiance,

And give life and honor to the infinite nameless stars that paint the cosmos each night.

I start with the smallest star in the sky, OGLE-TR-122b.

To this petite celestial wonder, I give the name Medial Caelestibus, the Celestial Fairy,

For though she may lack the fiery brilliance of Stella Polaris, she is still beautiful, and important,

And just as worthy of life, and of love.

And then I gave this love to the two dimmest stars in the universe.

I bestow on these dying twins the names Frater Arescentem and Sorror Arescentem,

So that when at last they die,

They die loved, if even by only one child.

XTE J1650-500, to you I give the name Obscura Luca,

GRW + 70 8247, you shall die as Luxia Oblitus.

Because though these stars may be dim beside the astonishing brilliance of Alpha Canis Majoris,

Without them, so lack-luster would the sky appear,

So lifeless, if not for the nameless spirits of midnight.

-SilentSymphonies

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