STARBRIGHT

We will never know the names
Of all the constellations:
Geometry conspires against us
In complicity with the Gods.
The universe is to remain
As it always has been:
Essentially mysterious.

Only Eve was ever given
The gift of naming things;
And she fell from Eden
In a comet blaze of fire,
Scattering knowledge
Into the blank recesses
Of the universe,
Leaving a myriad mysteries
Unnamed and untamed.
“So be it” said the Gods:
For this is how
It was always meant to be.

*          *          *          *

When you stare at the stars with me
Let them be as mysterious
As only mysteries can be
Let us revel in our ignorance,
Delight and dance
In frosted breaths of wintry clarity:
For who can afford
To expend themselves
In the knowing of things
But the dull and weary?

If I say I love you
Do not ask what I mean,
Let my love be a dazzle
That hides its depths
In a thousand surprises:
For even in the most mundane moment
I aspire to rise above familiarity

If we shake off the shackles of knowing,
We might be allowed
To bite into the sweet citrus skin of wisdom. 
If we please the Gods,
If we be as little children,
If we astound them with our love of living,
Then will they drop their manna
From heaven.

*          *          *          *

Orion can have his belt and braces,
His arrows and his spears.
He can hunt down forgotten meanings
And set his dreadful snares,
But he is condemned to stillness
And slowly burning out
In a universe too cold to care. 

You and I, with our trousers round our ankles,
Are free from gravity’s predilections:
Free as any bird of paradise or falling star.

We need nothing
And we need know nothing,
But the precious and imprecise beauty of being. 

We are here and now;
And there is no other place or time
I would want to be.