POEM COLLABORATION

Stellae Per Noctem Visae: Krauss in Poetry

I sat on winter’s bleakest knoll, caressed my chest

And I stared into the abyss and prayed for my soul

That is encumbered by black tendril chains pressing my head down

Down into submission, where I cannot look up to frown

Face fluid in apathy like sobbing brooks, babbling in apology

I do not care, though, and my back breaks and buckles

Bending to the decree of misery’s theology

Endless lamentations break my lips in voiceless screaming

And they are lost to the darkness, and so I feel tendons snap

And I am motionless, puppet to despair and nothingness

Tears. They are meaningless and they drown me.

A thousand reasons stream and nary a person can see

But when the light flickered on my cheek I could feel

The ravenous vines creep, the broken voice seep, and the mind dig deep

It cried to me, this beacon, “Who you are makes a difference”

The slither whisper of darkness whispered that such a thing is nonsense

“Nonsense, child, your flesh perturbs and your mind offends.”

The beacon cried again;

And cry precisely, for every word was burst of compassion

“You are strong. You are powerful. You are confident.

And so recite this to yourself for your player’s role is so essential.”

I reached for the star, as if distance between ethereal and real was inconsequential

And when my finger was embraced by its supernova warmth it burst

Flooding me. But it filled the depraved cavity of my body with an existential thirst

And every atom in my body came from a star that exploded

The poet scientists say that we are all stardust,

We are specks of one another and ourselves

Our gaze turns to starry skies and we find something to trust

I remember now bonfire vigils and seeing we are partly made from this one

It is so insignificantly small, but somehow it radiates like stretching suns

And I am, we are, held unified as masterstrokes from the nuclear furnace of a star

I look amongst myself and see lighted vignettes of those I thought so far

But stand amongst me, present and removing my scars

I look up to the star visible in the sky

And I realize that the tear leaving my eye

It is of gratitude.

How I am so unworthy to have graced your luminescence

But in filling me with your spirit, I learned to reach for the heavens

That tales of Icarus and Pegasus are mere fables to the ambitions of visionaries.