Beauty & Ruin

I grieved the stars their dance tonight. Furious at man’s light. If it were a competition, the stars would win. But we can’t see why. No. We can’t feel why… how they would take our breath away so incessantly, like they once did for our ancestors.

Or perhaps idly, not begging for attention. What does that feel like? To know it’s always there, a blanket of splendor, breaking my heart. 

And it’s not just man’s ambition to wield starlight with his own hands. But its imprint, leaving me to question what was always mine, as a daughter under the stars.

I’m devastated by how this gift seems lost under all the striving. Makeshift replacing magic.

An ancient presence that echoes the reach in my roots for the things unseen. The knowing at my core to grow tall in my place. The delight in my branches to sway and stretch out, unabashed, in love with the promise of adventure. So why do I feel pried loose, my branches endlessly stooping low, grasping for surety?

Is it too much to ask? To lazily gaze up into the endless, inky night, taking for granted a rendezvous with beauty and ruin itself. Welcoming rest and all that’s still to be found.