I wrote this poem as last year's Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico wound down. This year, I felt much the same. I share this as a promise of more reflections to come.
Ars Poetica (On Leaving)
Poetry
If your special magic is to pluck a single star
from the vast night sky of time
and pull that star apart into
a universe
then do
The clock wanes
and I will see only one more New Mexico moon
Stars are shy where I come from
I have to dig for them
beneath the rush and noise
of traffic
Twenty-four short hours from now
I board the airport shuttle
in broad daylight
the stars slipping
out of my naive net
Of course I cannot keep this
I am no astronaut
stepping in slow motion
on this moon rock
There is no gravity here, to hold me
No children
No wife
No friends with earth-bound histories
I would lose my tether and
pirouette into the galaxy
revolving endlessly round
a center of myself
Lost
to space madness