By David Lipowski
The trees on the horizon are
cracks in the still twilight sky;
the curtain of dark clouds above parts
for the beggar’s moon.
O what celestial hand could hold it
(for a pre-modern man)
But that of a burning God
who set the planets on their course
and wove the majestic tapestry of stars;
who spun hurricanes,
and whose massive ball of raving gas,
forever burning,
permits Us;
Vast, Unreachable, Creator, Master, Explainer of Things
(but those who would ask awaken at the atom’s apple)
to seek consul of cement, iron bars,
prediction, method¡ª
The palace,
but a city with the audacity
to be itself twice.