Deep in those blackboard nights with
brocade dust smearing the sky,
every star was counted.
wide numbers were needed;
numbers as round as
those weighty giants,
those chart-drooping colossi
that turn Sol into small teff.
Every star was counted,
numbers always twinned.
I’ve papered that number on eyes,
and pushed a burin sulci deep,
but never thought a star
would just
blink black.
1, 2, 3,... could it be?
A small blue-baby
swaddled in the see woad of white-hot blankets.
wasn’t there:
a blue dimple
was left on the heavens.
Dimples don’t like heaven,
so I’m tallying each quadrille,
every loopy crevice
where stars used to loll,
every loll on the list is ex-ed.
This blue-baby won’t speak,
it skated on the black slate
‘cause it never wanted a number,
never wanted the stacked beige
angles of a Knowing.
Baby-blue always wanted a becoming
a spinning for a compass change,
fast waving for a furled gaud,
and walking on toes for truest love.
no beige songs from
one-tone troubadours.
Every night I search for that star.
I see a star-hair dropped here
and there
sometimes a coronal flashing
or a small cation drop.
but I think this star has slipped
quietly into a laminate universe:
where colors shoot in circles
and stars wander like spring snakes.
where black is a washboard sky
and dust is gold.
where “Unknown” is stitched
on breeze-stiff banderoles
and stars tack
smiling
against every gale.
Ley Rhwrta - 1923
