Sunday, March 18, 2018

For Stephen Hawking

perhaps he made up for us a little
who waste so many chances
to even look at the sky
complaining in the traffic-about-
the sun in our eyes-
in all his wondering whys
his looking back at the broken picture puzzle cracked as
on a vast unchartered track, an endless spiraling,
diamonded, past what anyone else would do
should the thought even occur to them
star mapping Time, first breath christening
and paradoxical flowering into the
personally catastrophic and then, to begin again
as if it were music and the very first bar
picking up the golden thead no one else perceived
and leaving everything but his mind as collateral
for all thieves and enforced loitering, demented roadblocks
as perhaps the price to pay for meddling with the known
conclusions of those who own the prize at the moment
and will not let it go
how odd that he only burrowed farther on
as if he nested then among the stars
there being truly no alternative
and the faraway look in his eyes hardening
crystalized into
the day before the day before..into a shoal of light
no equations of the lost but a firmer step
where for him there was no ground possible
forming the formulated never yet conceived
in syllables no longer couched
in his own human voice
and circumspect
without real wings
there being no other choice;
shutting out all the noise of the self
pitying possibilities
ever more thickly befalling
deformed in the outer world
yet still his bow was bent and the golden
arrows flew so straight
past all anyone knew or could acknowledge, calculate
such a fate he had! and acceleration
the riddle more and more beautiful as he
climbed, nay, crawled toward the summits
oh angel I will not let thee go
except thou bless me
to grasp the fantastic hold he had on measuring
what couldn’t be measured they said
once they glimpsed he already had
and were sore amazed
oh let him be laid to rest on a boat of stars
and rowed on the magic waters
home.
mary angela douglas 18 march 2018