hailaJ

“hailaJ” (normally spelled “hyleg” but I’m using a spelling supposedly closer to the Persian original)

(This is the a-to-z challenge, and I’m using the last letter of the words rather than the first. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking ahead to “j” when I made this choice. For those of you [and you know who you are] who have accused me of using obscure words for no reason whatsoever, I will just say this: you are often right, but not in this case — I needed something that ended with “j”, and I didn’t want to discuss British Colonialism in India [raj] or any traditions sacred to Islam [look it up yourself]. Hence, “hailaj”.)

They said the stars were ill when he was born;
The Syzygy was newer than was full —
Ascendants, Lot of Fortune, all turned bad,
The Sun and Moon at angles sure to pull

Him into such a life as he has had:
Disaster planned from such eternities
As meant no chance for one as poor as he,
A member of the lost fraternities –

His hope lay in an undiscovered world.
A landscape he would walk within his dreams:
As life turns sour, he retreats into
The interstellar waste, the cosmic streams.

For there is hope, and there is hoping past –
There is misfortune that will not abate —
Though stars may cast a cold light down upon us,
There will be those who won’t succumb
To fate