A Leaf in Space

*** Submerged in empty vastness,

No star lungs offer breath to passing ships, yet

Stillness does not conquer.

No viscous jail captures vessels in friction.

Objects stay in motion;

So decrees the movement law,

Though here in starscape ocean

Currents do not space-birds draw.

So cast a frond to frozen sky

And though no wind catch sails,

Through galaxies the sheet could fly

Through vacuum’s stormless gales.

Lonely leaf might float, then

From first to final sigh of stars.

So what can firefly gloat, then

Of lifetime stuck in heav’nly jar?

Nor could brag a pebble

To ever-winding slingshot bound

Though rock, Goliath leveled,

These Davids turn for eons round.

But here detached from forest hand,

Tree finger rakes the sky

And wanders through the barren land

To witness lights that die.

No tears are shed for flick’ring bulbs if no one sees them fail,

So space-bound leaf must weep for all a holy, somber pail

Then take that water far across the solar system sea

And offer it as drink to roots of universe’s tree.

Grief of stars collapsed collect and water droplets form.

Freezing, then, they shatter into interstellar storm.

Cosmic trunk absorbs the glass a most impressive way

As ice impaling bark produces crystalline array.

From body of the ancient tree a sap begins to run,

Its blood exacted for the deaths of long-forgotten suns.

But shards of frozen water catch and focus heav’nly beams,

Collimating photons into ice-infested seams.

Within the glands,

The shine dust stands

And golden halos form.

Holding tight

To hands of light,

Their song, space-ocean warms.

And as they circle round and round, they rise to meet the branches,

Following the crooked stems and synchronizing dances.

Walking now in matching step, ascending inner wall,

They interfere constructively and form a gleaming ball.

Then from the tree is born the child of starlight without cry,

As silent lines of photons scream existence to the sky.

Gathering shine infant in his tear-collecting bowl,

The space leaf hums a lullaby to newly-fashioned soul.

As baby coos
In heav’nly hues,

New beams begin to run.
Filling night
With rays of light,
From just-created sun.

New light appears
On earthly spheres,
Their legends to inspire

And homage pay
To stars unmade:
Those long-extinguished fires.