LANTERN

LANTERN

bottle rocket
ship lantern

nothing so poignant
in my humble opinion

braving the dark pond, the calm lake
that is the ocean
that is the immensity of
intergalactic space

soaring high, showing the stars
what we are worth
how we can make stars
that explode and fall
with our chemistry wisdom
every
colour of the rainbow
(where in the cosmos
star that burns lilac,
star that
burns lime green?)

the stars our audience here
so tiny from our perspective

our moment of
triumph
ecstasy the dead Universe
out there has never felt for itself, seen
the like of

no feared fable of entropy
the lantern boats sail, burn
are consumed, sink
disappear

tiny energy, cause
and effect
to perfection
our hearts hopes
on that little
Odyssey with you

the morning rain turning all
those spent cardboard tubes
to mulch

the stars
in recess, no doubt
conferring such distances involved,

such titanic energies

doubtless stirred into some
kind of reaction by
all our performance

JOINT

JOINT

join me
we going to walk backwards
to the beginning of time

our book of cosmology
before us to guide us

make sure we avoid
possible supernovas
certain blackholes
neutron stars, flares
and explosive
gamma bursts

holding hands in
the starlight, the future receding
and then —

such celebration
when we arrive
at our destination
positively ticking from
all that
background radiation

every moment on our travels
helping to meld our two minds