The skirt of eternity

The skirt of eternity 

Excited, frightened, returning home

hand-held, stiff-necked by thundering,

luminous fireworks above the city green,

along the trestle, timbers and rails,

rubbed out too soon for me always

from a black, fifties Alabama, dirt town sky,

light years below the pure and familiar,

neglected constellations.

Looking them in the eyes years later,

my children, their gunshot rise,

arc and flare, reflections, sighs, cries,

where it burned me deeper and lasted

longer, barely looking up myself.

Now traipsing out lonely, tree-shaped,

unheralded silent nights only to view

the ordinary and stationary, fated and patient,

faithfully waiting, perfectly-aligned

comets, moon, planets and stars.

O child of God, ignore the passing fancies;

grab onto the skirt of eternity.