The stars in space are twinkling
my name across pearl petaled sky.
Something within eases, a child’s sigh
escapes my lips and into the wide vision
of a godly dream.
Bronx streets are crackling with concrete
grief. Feet draggers and dazed loiterers,
brittle toilers, come apart regularly—
One wonders if underneath
such sky
a gun or knife can take away
such silverly light—
Can a stranger’s deranged might
truly cut down infinity
smiling, perpetually mute?
It soothes my heart, it does,
how still
things can seem to be.
Although, I know
heaven’s bodies
and city’s bodies
spin and cycle
black depths and black speeds
so fast that to the eyes they seem
to be resting in peace.
Can such illusionary serenity
free the mind from debts,
from the pains of making ends meet,
from the strains of maintaining the lightbulb
of the soul alight—
can the reality of inner poverty
cease to be?
I wonder how many others
look up at the night sky
and wish.
Does the bruised branded,
gun-toting and scowling jacket,
youth?
How about the quiet nurse
who over long seasons sheds
her spring bright eyelashes
over sanitation sinks—does she
peer through the ceilings of hospital wings?
Do we all feel childhood’s pang
reaching
from an infinity inside?
Can we hear the muffled prayer,
its delicate wish to come alive?
Do our hearts somehow still retain
a vision for haven,
a yearning for home’s continuity,
even long after we’ve been casted out
onto the wet stoops
and into the glare of unblinking streetlamps?