Starry Heavens

Starry heavens… I'm borrowing your depth, I'm contemplating those celestial reaches, The kind that impart romance to stories… I'm basking in night air, Maybe giving my soul a moon-tan; I'm basking in dusk to conjure up The moment of my own dissolution, Or my expansion into a ripple pattern. I seek out shores to court watery depths, To be receptive to distant pulsations… When a chord is struck in the deepest weave A portal opens where story lines converge… I don't mind if scenes are borrowed or repeated, I trust the wind of time's sailing route to take me To a story under the trance of its own innate romance, And I linger all through the vanishing of such a dream, Knowing it takes a grand dream to believe in its own idea… To believe that a life is enlarged by rendering up the heart, Like a troubadour leading a life of troubadourage, Or golden-age poets hammering out their lines. But now we are bitter intoners of a troubled era Scouring our guts to squeeze out drops of gall, Fussing with verses to take a persistent stand Against wars too stupid to imagine their own end. ... ... ... ... I always saw the gleam, vicariously felt the thrum Of dream regimes able to live in men's minds. A Sufi believes in travel to sacred locations, A priest's chant resounds on an airy platform; The Tang poets were consoled by pure clarity Abstracted directly out of mountains and rivers... They were not just resorting to that language To cover up their state of lonely separation, They sought something to offer at gatherings... Whatever it would take for a lonely edge walker To share a new tale with a long-lost brother.