This Is The Unit On Stars

["I heard the learned astronomer..."
-Walt Whitman]

"this is the unit on stars."
and we are forced to gaze at Light
(or its' facsimiles),

starlight, starbright, as though we

never would have, left to our own devices.
you know how children are.
and these are the distances from

where you are to where...

and someone's chalking on the blackboard-
"please stop talking"- squeaking on the
whiteboard, pinning to the bulletin board

the pictures that don't resemble at all

the night skies learned by heart.
oh my heart. will they confine
the universe to a classroom in the End

or when will the breezes blow again,
without inspection?

mary angela douglas 9 august 2015