THE STARS
always the same paranoia
that the sky might fall
humanity
screams so loud
the Universe shatters
like fine porcelain
so
I
look to the stars
to see
what I can see
see that some vaulted
as if in imitation
of some cathedral
observe them twinkle
hard to believe there
is not a message
there
or something
hard to believe
they should be objects
of such fear.
****
so you
listened to the stars
and yet
heard nothing
nothing and yet
I see from
these images how
your imagination
went wildfire
summoned objects of
deep familiarity and
yet such strangeness
out of that
vestry, that repertoire
images to
terrify
the mind
delight the very soul
turn us
upside down
inside out
stretch us to
the limits of
faith and belief
****
she told me
she reached out
touched a star once
did not grasp it, grab it
pull it down
nothing so
Faustian in any
bargain with that power
I touched her
looking for
the star inside her
asked her
if love
and desire were
things cosmic
and if cosmic
then pre-determined
perfectly symmetrical
told her
I had once deeply loved
a creature unsymmetrical
her eyes
slightly at odds
but her breasts
perfect
more perfect breasts
in the galaxy could
not possibility exist
she told me
my mind
worked like
that of Aquinas
but in the crassest
way possible
so I think
of what she said
am
haunted by
what she said
cannot sleep
can only think
feel
totally eclipsed
****
make way
for the stars
make way
make way
we read them
heard the sad tale
of their
final demise
and with it
our departure too
once they were
pure thought, abstract conception
in medieval scholasticism
just a
governing principle
a point of origin
and now
in quantum cosmology
how so
absolutely different
whose children
born of you
creatures of your furnace fire
subject to your great gravity
possessed of
your will, your dream, your
imagination
born to
in our own teeny-tiny
explosive biological moment
have not
heard the best
or worst
in what
you say, have said
still have
yet to say