III. Stars in the Universe

For Wes and Bailey

Here in Nashville, city lights dim the stars,

Edison’s electrical artifice

Obscuring the breathtaking grandeur

Of promises made a long time ago,

Sealed by galaxies far, far away.

Nonetheless, an unfathomable host 

Of unflinchingly faithful stars

Still testifies in silence,

If you know where to look

And how to see.

Try an Ozark hillside

On a clear winter night

When the moon has waned away

To nearly nothing

And inside a warm delivery room,

Strong and gentle hands

Comfort, uphold, protect, 

And tenderly birth into the world

A bloody, squirming, squealing miracle.

Or try the red-dust high desert

Of Navajo country, 

Where a man runs alone

From mesa to mesa, contemplating

His next idea for bending, shaping

Lifeless wood into a living, singing

Thing of beauty, 

Another weapon in the war he wages 

Against damnable darkness.

And if you still can’t see the stars

Go to an inviting space

Amid a crowd of strangers

Who feel like ancient kin

And listen to the songs of a man

Playing on a 12-string guitar

Songs of life and loveliness 

Wrested from the very maw of death.

(And be sure to have a piece 

Of sweet, tart, mouth-melting apple pie

If you can bring yourself to cut into

Its intricately adorned crust.)

Watch the stars carefully while you can,
For they all inevitably fade into obscurity...
But not forever.
Some glad morning, we'll see their glory

Born anew, as the elder stars foretold
When first they flooded light and life
Into our crooked, hurting world.

II. Per Aspera

From the moment he first drew breath

Through bluish infant lips

And let out a mighty wail 

Protesting the crushing pain

Of his journey into the world,

The cold cruelty of the open air 

After the enveloping embrace 

Of his mother’s womb,

I have loved him more than life.

I marveled at his first step,

Delighted myself in his baby laughter,

Wept for his broken bones, his broken heart,

Thanked the Maker for his strong body

And his clever mind.

And now that same Maker demands his life,

So I lay him on the rough stone altar --

My beloved, trusting, obedient son --

And pray in desperation 

That somehow death might be rendered harmless,

Fully eclipsed,

Swallowed up by life.

This is the price I paid for the stars

In all their galactic glory,

The swirling Milky Way,

The strong and silent Hunter, 

The Big and Little Bears:
I laid my dearest dream out to die

And wielded the knife myself.

I. First Light

In the beginning, they were flung

Into a million million galaxies,

Not haphazardly, but myriad points

Adorning an endless tapestry

Of time and space and matter,

A grandeur so complex, so vast 

That we often see it only

As sublime impersonal chaos.

The stellar dance of matter and mass,

Of fission and fusion,

Of flares and plasma

And perpetual nuclear explosions,

Hydrogen transforming into helium,

Burning through tons of matter

In a matter of moments,

Profligate as a prodigal

Whose father’s corpse has not yet cooled.

Herein lie deep secrets of creation.

Was this the power that intoxicated

The son of the morning

When he rose up to wage

His revolutionary war?

Did he begrudge the wastefulness

Of these universe-shaping forces

Harnessed for the viewing pleasure

Of tiny creatures

On a tiny planet

Far from the Center of things?