Starfall

In the night I walked beneath the Pole Star, there
My eyes were heaven-bent for help in prayer.
In a carrying wind I could hear music in the void.
Was I thinking of a silhouette in darkness I was walking toward?

Stars, distant and far away, struggled to exist - some now cold -
The only heat they’d ever known lost to space.
An orchestra of light electric spoke out of the past and raced
Beyond my ears as to stone a tale of turning they told.

My steps became tender - the moon was still to rise.
Gravity makes sure the step even when the heart only sighs.
Until we learn to fly, all steps end where they begin in dread.
Dreams only leave the ground when wings are finally spread.

And then a star did turn to stone as the orchestra’s memory played.
It fell from the night as in a blink I watched and stared at where -
At the place it had been and through its arc to nothing there.
A brilliant portent lit my brain and I drew in a breath delayed.

And when that breath came out again it carried a name in a prayer -
A sigh, a name and nothing more I’d dare.
When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.
Specially if the wish is only a name of someone away and far.

Had you been beside me in the darkness eyes ice blue,
We’d have seen the star together you and I.
Would you have expelled my name in a whispered awestruck cry?
Would the moment have bound us - you to me and I to you?

Had we been taken by a golden streak in the inky tar
Would we have thought it right to make a wish in reverie?
A simple pledge to hold in our heart that memory
So we could say, “Remember when we wished upon a star?”

Thank God the Pole Star stayed its place anchoring the sky
I followed on toward my goal in a mundane errand of need
I vowed to keep that memory held and the portent sure to heed
On I walked. On I went. I left that place of time gone by.

Even if I hadn’t seen it, that star would have fallen just the same
Just a rock of elements bound in the common fire of annihilation
It had no hope or faith or love or living consolation
But it made me think of being alone. And died as I breathed your name.