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Feeling an urge for the magnificent,
she closes the door behind and
pulls her eyes up to the night sky.
Trembling and deep,
a singular breath breaks the quiet.
Stars cradle the night.
glimpsed between the moody thicket of clouds.
She can feel them.
She does not need to see them to know
just how they embrace the earth.
The Seven Sisters in their triangular house,
bright and solitary Venus,
the angles of the Dippers, large and small.
and beyond the named ones
orbit the rest of the protectors, helpers,
the angels of the night.
The spotty clouds, still lazily forming and reforming,
now speak to her--
“We are of the earth. Made of the same elements as you.”
Same as me? she wonders, then imagines
the stars as her sisters…clouds her brothers.
While musing
understandings break away and regroup.
What is anything but a way
of capturing and releasing in another form?
Am I capturing the clouds in my mind,
capturing the stars in my feeling?
Suddenly she understands as clearly as if
she was holding in her hands the chain made of thoughts,
linked to produce concepts, words, feelings.
Tonight, a hooded walker is stabilized by gravity,
aware of the cradle of stars surrounding her,
surrounding earth.
She walks, hands in pockets,
shivering from the brisk air and the revelation.
Silent stars revolve inside her,
micro universes with orbits unseen, unfelt.
Gravity puts one foot in front of the other.
She thinks about gravity,
and how it keeps thoughts stable and moving.
Strains break off and reform, cloudy thickets of brain stuff,
coming together as never before and never again.
Arriving at the doorstep, a pinprick point
in the galaxy she calls home,
the flashlight is still upright by the door.
It did not spin off, revolving in its own orbit.
It is stable, as is the doormat,
as is some part of her.
The micro-orbit of cells and particles,
named and unnamed frontiers of the inside universe
continue their ancient revolution
as her hand reaches for the doorknob.
Gravity is unwavering.
Forms break away and reform.
Micro and macro-orbits continue
beyond what she can know.
Awareness is a name for life,
stable yet always moving
in the now and in the ever.
2013
Qi Gong especially for the energy of this poem: