For Starward


When I was ready to give up
the tiger swallowtail,
carrying ideas
on its brassy, breathing
wings,
landed on my sorrow,
and I couldn't
imagine what those reinvented
thoughts were and I
had no idea what to do with
all that cleansing,
but I knew it was different
than what I had,
and that was enough,

and so was the forest
and the fluid sky, so
ferocious in their
unchanging identity,
and the bottomless silence
between it all that is
made out of kindness and
an innate need to give,
and so, I guess it's true:

one life makes all
the difference.

Like the winged oracle
in constant bloom
bringing news of velvet and
gold to those beaten down by
too much raw living,

you hand a gleaming scroll to
the brutalized, the social exiles,
the spirits too fine and precious
for this world,

and to those hearts
your words are portable fire
they will carry
through their days
and when they are alone in
the dark—
a darkness that should
annihilate memory but
spares it just enough—
they will look up at spheres
pinned to a mystery

and remember your name,

and, knowing that Love
stitches galaxy to galaxy,
and everything,
together,

remember who they are.


Patricia Joan Jones