Starfields

Night-time atop this outskirt hill and I gaze down upon the slumbering city.

Where there should be an array of dotted electric-lights I see none;
where there should be an insipid display of incandescence—I see none of this.

What I see instead is a field of stars, most motionless, some milling about in activity.
Some stars are bright and proud, others still and timid, as if struck dead.
Hundreds and thousands of them, maybe millions,
there twinkling in the dark and under cover of a selfsame sky.

And everywhere I have been it has been the same:
these Starfields revealed in unbeguiling night.
I have seen enough of these fields to know they are everywhere over the world.

I continue to observe from this hilltop,
watching and waiting for dimming and brightening.
And sometimes I notice that when one or a few stars dim or brigthen,
those adjacent to them do the same;
sometimes subtlety, sometimes like a wildfire or a blackout.

I continue to observe and I wonder.

--

I can see the light in you, the light that was lit aeons ago
—and it burns, it burns as if this were its last triumphal deed.
The strength of its burning is of no importance, only that it burns.
It is the centre of all things, all things in you—it is yours and yours alone.

But what I see is meaningless to you:

can you see your own starlight?

Ex Tempore LXIII
M.M. — 09-Sep-2013