“Stars Gazing” by Raymond Luczak

Your gauzy winds nudge and awaken us,
a sea of radioactive cauldrons
threatening to explode in black lava.
We’ve lost so much. But we keep watching you.
Your dreams however slight nurture our own
and hang like ornaments to sustain us
when comets whip our backs and leave pockmarks.
We squint far and low to search out your glows
twinkling through the cloak of your dreams aching,
full of inchoate images and words
unequaled anywhere in vaster skies.
So much imagination is a gift.
We are touched when astronomers map us.
You are the multitudes. We are so small.

—–

Raymond Luczak is the author and editor of 22 books. Titles forthcoming in 2019 include Flannelwood (Red Hen Press) and Lovejets: Queer Male Poets on 200 Years of Walt Whitman (Squares & Rebels). He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and online at raymondluczak.com.