I realize that I've missed posting here quite a few things I posted past weeks on my Facebook page. So I'm going to backtrack a bit here for several posts. Here's one: This morning I am once again thinking about the immensity of the star-riddled heavens, the power of the Hubble telescope images, the fact that we are looking back into time, that eternal riddle, every time we gaze up into the night sky. And the fact that we are all born of stardust.
Over the years, many of my poems have probed this mystery. I think I'll share a few this week. Here's one from my book *The Resonance Around Us* (though o/p, the book is available from my website). I wrote it while in residence at VCCA, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains:
Some Nights
Some nights I visit the mountains, called by the voice of the wind fluting through old growth forests,
and I find myself lying on the lip
of a cliff, the night sky wedding me to stone, stars falling through me.
Some nights I lie there till dawn, becoming something other—some
elemental animal of fire whose
memories flare and go out, leaving me like ashes that will wash down the rock face to earth.
Some say I only dream these mountains, that they are not real, and no beast born of fire can live.
I tell them I have been there,
that the cliff bears the mold of my face, and that my flesh still
smolders with the light of dying
stars, though it does not hurt to
burn my way back home.
(c) 2013 Penny Harter. From "The Resonance Around Us" .