I step out once again to feed and sit with queens,
allowing the gnaw of deep autumnal might on my feet.
Clouds posturing is lifted and the night sky begins it’s revue.
Thus the stars shimmer their refrain,
despite the growing storm of light pollution from the south.
Still the chorus echos, filled with patterns and numbers,
of mythology and methodology in a dulcet harmony.
An old thrill returns at the reveal
of silver freckles on a suggestive canvas.
These are the stars of today, bodies that promised
homes to return to only a few generations ago.
They are the stars that shepherded immigrants,
guided the escapees, and comforted those running from homes
that instead revealed themselves to be hell.
These are the stars that cured and called to overwhelming minds,
desperate to find an internal peace before our phones.
Within these bodies are twin emotions: madness and hope.
Held together with the fascia of dark matter,
we find the universe as confusing and complex as ourselves.
Are we not also suck in our own patterns of temperament?
Are we not also subjects to gravity and time?
Aren’t we also subject to burn out if we shine bright too fast
or turn inward and cold till we’re a husk of ourselves?
Yet these aren’t the stars of the ancestors or futures.
These giants and dwarfs will come and go, just as time promised.
But for now I shall hold in glory and reverence
the stars that shine for me tonight.
For you will never know exactly when a star to fade,
so I will return to my refrain of gazing
back to the body of the universe, accepting
that upon each star I hang
one hope or one fear till
my mind also falls dark
finally to rest.