Starchild

Not a molecule there is
But once was bright star substance
Shining in a universe of old.


And even we
(with all the dull utility
Of flesh and bone)
Even we once shone
And graced an ancient night
In galaxies before our own.


So when I laid you in your cot tonight
And marble moonlight glazed your skin with silver leaf
I left the curtains open to the sky;
unwilling to disturb the moonglow's magic on your face.


Ghostly it was, and you transformed before my eyes;
Starchild.
Creature of heaven; milkwhite in darkness.
The cot cast zebra shadows on your frame.


I shut the window lest you float outside,
riding the moonbeams home while I was turned away.


Tiptoed, I left the room
But could not shake the hauntings from my mind,
The memories imagined from another world, another time
When heaven's light was part of mine.
I long with all my heart
To be transformed;
To break the shackles of a shallow mind,
The harness of a cold and hollow heart,
To be consumed,
And burn with fire again.


(c) A McN
 
This was written many years ago but I only found it recently in a notebook.
The astronomer in me has always marvelled that every cell in my body owes it's founding chemistry to a long lost star explosion where hydrogen and helium were forged into heavier elements. To look at my young son shining in reflected moonlight brought back something of that wonder - we are all creatures derived from light.

Volcano

In your raging
words came spilling out in
torrents of white-hot anger.
It was like standing
on the edge of a vent
when the volcano is erupting
and you know you are going to get hurt.

But in this way it was different..
I could see that deep inside the magma chamber,
deeper than a man could reach,
there was a raw pain whose shape escaped you
but whose heat boiled underground
from origins beyond the span of memory and
times before your conscious world began.

Oh that time might take those wounds
and cool them in the cradled arms of love.
Oh that the sting of burning lava might
crystallise to strength of solid rocks
then weather down to wisdom's rich fertility.
Oh that I, imperfect as I am, might be
the healing, humble grass that
helps the barren land find beauty in its grasp.

(c) A McN