Lost Star - by the Welsh poet, Ley Rhwrta

• Lost Star

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