Once In Starlight Prospero's Miranda Said

there was more than science in the stars

we knew that then even when

we were children

there was a feeling of wanting to stretch the heart

toward them as beyond the tops of the trees

leaning to trace in a spice filled wind

the odysseys of clouds

there was a feeling of strange kinship as though

they were winking back at us somehow, the regal stars

is it better now are we better at them now that we have reduced them

to numbers, velocities vibrations passing out of sight heaps of ash

and explained their shining away

once they were poetry what can I say where nothing seems to last

when even poetry now is no longer itself but only a remnant

now they can be mined for data my perishing stars

I would weep for them

if I could remember their real names.

mary angela douglas 16 november 2020;2 november 2021