The Call:

Star-men ride on solar winds, arms stretched

wide even though they remain inside,

not the spider look and feel, held by the fake

umbilical while around them distant stars

sing songs with words no star-man can understand,

yet they feel them, deep within, suited or naked,

floating in the lack of gravity or earthed, feet planted,

the weight they were born to hold giving them time

to stand and listen, to feel within the pulse that makes

the heart quicken ‑ yes star-men long for the hyper drive,

seek often the craziness of the wormhole, that elongation

of the mind and dreaming, time lost then re-found,

but nothing matches the wide-legged stance, unhelmeted

head thrown back, arms on the hips and the eyes, the eyes

for that certain sun’s light,  open to capture in sunrise

and at dusk, the first and last rites of stars, their light

like strands of hair, flickering in the solar wind as they beckon,

shyly as Sirens and the Odysseus post called Earth

must lose the battle as star-men seek  ever to answer

that unrelenting call, return, leaving again the planet home.