"How Sweet The Stars"

How Sweet The Stars

and at last, looking back at
what once was my home, not just
the structure, but the ground too,
I’m floating, light but heavy,
always two things at once now
when I used to be only one,
twisting, uncoiling, a helix
spinning in a circle, widening,
widening, describing the shape of
everything, and hearing a tone,
a note that is all notes, a chord,
but not music, a sound, the sound
of a circle, the sound of spinning,
a sound that means both
hello and farewell,
while all around me,
collapsing, dissolving in the
centrifuge, the structure and the ground,
expanding the edge between
the shadow and the light until
there is no difference, until it makes
a circle that is part of me, joining,
burning out like something old,
shining like something new,
always two things now,
now three, now four or more,
and now no more numbers,
just peace, just the infinity of
a circle drawing me in, floating
through it all, seeing it all
long enough to think at last,
before they blow away and evaporate,
“How sweet the stars—”

©JEF