The Same Stars
my eyes climb through the boughs to see
the same stars that rock me in their cradle
now rock you and so will rock the spangled void
for every lover, past the time I'll need their cover
when I am stardust in no one’s eye.
The same stars look down tonight
on every face I held like saving grace
candled in the sky lantern of my palms.
Though every matchstick light I tended
is long blown out, the sweet smoke pools
a shadowed incense in moon's dark garden
for when the spell is wound up,
and three whippoorwills call to the crow
outside the windowed midnight all in a row.
Then my last kiss to you will be
the first newborn thing
the same stars dream
March 2012
Yi peng sky lantern festival, San Sai Thailand
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Sunday Photo Challenge: Laura Hegfield
Optional Musical Accompaniment
Header Photo by Laura Hegfield
Used with permissionFooter Photo: Yi peng sky lantern festival San Sai Thailand By Takeaway (Own work)
via Wikimedia Commons
This is complete in its own natural beauty. No more need be said.
ReplyDeletecandled in the sky lantern of my palms
ReplyDeletelove that line...and that whole middle stanza is magic, followed by the spell itself in the third....the rhyming in it def reeks of incantation...and stars dreaming of your kiss a flourish at the end...
well done hedge
Just beautiful, love it !
ReplyDeleteChaz I think wrote about we being the eye looking at the heavens looking down at us -- it's something to think that those stars we witness every night have been the Other for our singers and lovers all the way back to the beginning and beyond: same diamond rapture, same song, yet each time we mouth it the vision is fresh as a first and ever kiss. Writing this poem winds up the spell of the power of remembrance that etches the heart with a starry stylus, like the old tree with the carved heart and two pairs of initials. Death is just the beginning of the old, starry dreamtime. Loved it. - Brendan
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. Sometimes you don't have to be original to say something new, perhaps--or to bask in the kind of new that's so old you can't tell the difference. 'Moonlight and love songs/never out of date,' as Billie sings. It's nice to be able to sit outside again at night--missed it over the winter.
DeleteDamn, woman. This is powerful, and an instant favorite for me. It's softer than many of yours, but it still has that restless, hope-against-hope somehow beautiful resignation that you write so well. The first three lines of the penultimate stanza were particularly well done, I thought. A sigh, and a smoking burn. I love this.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shay--those three lines were actually the first ones of the poem that came to me, looking up. I sort of rearranged stanzas for the photo.
DeleteThis is beautiful Hedge...I love when I am a stardust in no one's eyes and sky lanterns on my palms ~
ReplyDeleteThis is achingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorites of yours too - "the sweet smoke pools a shadowed incense in moon's dark garden." Wow.
ReplyDeleteThe imagery in your first line really grabbed me: "Caught crisscross before the moon." I love the word "criss-cross."
ReplyDeleteHauntingly beautiful,
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I love the moon's dark garden, too. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone, for stopping by and leaving your thoughts--I have a busy day ahead, but I'll be by to read this evening, I hope.
ReplyDeleteAhhhh... All beautiful but the end clinches it. K.
ReplyDeleteLove the internal rhymes and alliteration in this, a touching, musical offering.
ReplyDeleteHow deeply so many, people and cultures, love the moon and stars. Wonderful poem to read at the start of this crazy month. (I'm reading it a day late ;) ). Enjoy this whirlwind of words, the month of April.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. Simply beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThen my last kiss to you will be
ReplyDeletethe first newborn thing
the same stars dream
I'm quite fond of this ending, Hedge, beautiful poem!
This is beautiful..I love poems about the moon.
ReplyDeletegorgeous poem...I am so deeply honored that my photo inspired this!
ReplyDeleteWhenever something gets me thinking about the things that are really too big for me to think about, I know it is good. This had a bit of an aura too it that commanded pace and emotion as you read it. Wonderful.
ReplyDelete