Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Mintaka,
Sirius, Deneb, Procyon….
we have named the stars for eons,
out there in the heavens, so
distant and powerful,
naming and mapping them until
we think we know the stars.

And the stars themselves,
what do they know,
what do they do?
Jonathon, Susan, Richard,
Michael, Sheila, Jennifer;
the stars name us,
have always named us.
The stars are powers
directly related to ourselves,
intimately connected to our lives,
and they have a conscious realm
in which we have a place,
we are of the family of stars,
as the stars are of the family of humans.
Life flows everywhere, speaking
in roars and whispers, and
the streaming of light is a two way
movement, the streams of longing
towards a heavenly life are
known and sustained by the stars.
They know us well, the stars,
far better than we know ourselves.
They made us, how could they not know us?
The sun, the son, our mother father star
is closer than our beating hearts.
The sun, the son, is cousin and uncle to the denizens of the Milky Way,
who ride colossal over our nights.
Rigel, Vega, Bellatrix,
Kenneth, Jaynie, Aeddan:
vast light years separate us,
only as illusion,
only as within ourselves
the universe is to be touched
and consumed, eaten and
converted to energy and life.
The stars know our names,
more surely than we know theirs.
How many stars are there?
How many people are there?
How many animals, rocks, trees,
galaxies, quasars, double stars,
triple stars, families of stars
ride about on the ecstasy of gravitational
attachment, loving and loved,
being here for us day and night
part of all in everything.
What prevents us from knowing that we are known?
Only ourselves and the stifled imagination
of our times, blocks us
from deep converse with the population of the heavens,
who wait, above us and within us,
for our awakening.

 

- by Art Rosch (Rohnert Park, CA. USA)

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