Astronomy

And here I went, studying

gentle clouds named after the sky.

In the old syllabus we used to hunt

breezes and winters, & master how

to outlive rocks covered with snow.

I took notes on stars; how

they whispered to my night,

& how they migrated through my dreams.

I highlighted my favorite

sunset in red.

& I owned blood

as blue as Vincent’s eyes.

I was fond of chapters

discussing atoms of stars

reconstructing my body, really;

& I still ponder the material

my soul was made of.

I contemplated those silky, nightly ways;

I observed and refined my handwriting

and fingerprints under this

moonlight: secretly I plagiarized

the meteors' dance.

& I grew older as the sun does, as

the cosmos does.

Now I memorize the patterns of how

constellations and moony drizzles

descend. Yet I no longer

scribble down lines of poetry

parallel to my name on my workbook.

& no longer do I doodle the orbit of galaxies

on the cover of my youth.

Sometimes I sit here, reminiscing

about the days that I capitalized verses

among stardust & punctuated the night sky.

I want to review the terminology

of my light source. Days that we all

looked bright, learning the meanings

of soil and pain, reasons of sky

and storm. I try to map out my

geography on the pale realm of universe

& revisit my reflection on the

origin of atoms in my bones. I

symbolize a nameless flame of a

lonely nebula. Tracelessly, in the

debris of comets, I install my

words, shine them to be clean,

& outline all the decent scars

and rough hopes.

2021.11