Saturday, 18 March 2017

Star-man is dead:

Something precious, something luminous
that shone inside my own heart was jettisoned
the day my star-man friend, died.
His funeral captured the ache of space, how all
that vacant expanse can stretch out before you,
colourless, so large the eyes must look down,
study toes and tiles, ponder minute things
like when will it be time for the next coffee.

I have so few, true my star-man friends,
his visits, like the rising of planets in the night sky
lifted my spirits, helped me avoid the collisions
space junk can deliver when you’re not looking.
Echoes of the funeral ripple through my mind,
the way leaves can rustle across the tarmac
warning the journey may mean leaving
but nothing meaningful can be left behind.

And sometimes, lying in bed, I can imagine
how Armstrong must have, perhaps secretly, felt -
 his dreams echoing with sights of the moon, the view
of all that white space in the rocket’s porthole;

the knowledge very few would ever really understand.

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