Stars

Stars

September 12, 2007

Stars are fully conscious beings.

They know what they are,

they know what they do.

They have lives, beginning

and ending.  They have work

to do.  They have intellect

beyond our ken, emotions

vast and mighty.

Stars know what’s in their heart,

understand full well

how atomic nuclei fuse

to give them complex life,

control their power

and communicate

with other stars, and with the mighty hosts

of galaxies.

Stars participate

in the orchestra of cosmos,

stars love.  Stars love.  Stars love.

Stars sing, growl, howl, scream

adore, implore, quake, mistake,

correct, deflect, in counterpoint

composed by stars’ mighty fathers and mothers,

grandfathers and grandmothers, substance

of eternal generations going all the way back

to the beginning of this time, this time

which stretches long and rejoins itself

where stars truly begin.  And end.

Stars go crazy and explode, and shed

their substance in the stellar analog

of pregnancy and regeneration,

of doom and ressurection.

It is difficult for humans to conceive

the roaring inferno of love

out of which stars make their lives,

how the insides of stars determine

the outsides of stars, and how

at the very center of a star,

a single paricle is always igniting,

igniting, igniting, that lightning

is to a star what a heartbeat

is to a man,

the most fundamental element

of existence, burning burning hot,

hot so hot beyond comprehending,

a melting love, a fusing love,

a uniting love, an orgasmic love

tied to everything in deep converse

merged with all in a universe

where voices cross the void

where void disappears into

inexplicable and infinitely tiny

spaces, like spaces inside our bodies

where atoms combine, where molecules

caress and form other lives.

Stars know what they are.

Stars are alive and individual,

quirky with personality,

often pulsing and drawing

gravity blood, gas and heat,

combining with other stars

combining and mating with other

stars and forming unions of

higher imaginations

in order to serve the Master  of Stars.

Even rogue stars, sad brown old stars,

invisible stars, fresh newborn stars

understand why they came to be

what they are

in the very first place.

Watching Sleep

Watching Sleep

August 5, 2002

Last night I counted your breaths while you slept.

Towards morning, I lost count, but

you awoke a few minutes later,

so I rounded the number off

and privately recorded your many thousands of sleeping

breaths, in the journal of love I am making for you.

This entry:  the night I counted your breaths while you slept.

I wanted to do this.

I wanted to have a secret way of loving you,

so that all the known ways I love you

can have a private underside,

a place where love is always new and mysterious.

I know that you count my breaths while I am awake.

Somewhere, inside the often-painful activity of your mind,

you find a peaceful grotto, and there

you count my breaths, without even knowing you are doing it.

Your love is so constant, it is a place I can go where fear does not exist,

has never existed.

I must practice harder than you, to love.

I must keep awake and make vigil, sometimes,

so that,  while you dream,

I am doing something important,

being the clock of your breath,

helping you sleep.

I can do nothing more loving for you

than to help you sleep.

You always wanted someone to watch over you.

You felt abandoned and alone.

With this secret, I heal you.

I count the long slow breaths, I catch at the sudden twitches,

I invent words to accompany your dream-mumbled incoherences.

I might show you this poem, if it will make you happy.

I wanted it to be a secret.  But tomorrow night, or the next,

I will do it again, or I will do something else,

find another way to love you,

something only I could think of doing,

and only you could understand

why I have done it.