Fabricating Astrology

I lie on my back in the damp grass,
Staring at the stars' mineral precision.
Masses of gas, bearers of dead light,
Mysteries snared by unreachable lairs,

How many pairs of eyes have swilled
From your glass and grown thirstier?
Will our progeny decode your songs?
My heart gives its usual answer: thrum.

The longer I gape, the more the many
Nebulae appear latticed, like a screen
In windows or page of graph paper,
Ordered as the placement of fibulas

In feet. The chart seems plotted
Along three axes: love, labor, time.
Besotted hours converge into minus,
Kind and curative movements belong

To plus, and mirrored, both data-sets
Verge towards an indentical asymptote,
Death, Provider of cardinal boundary,
Maker of the silence shapes merge with

Eventually. This much is certain:
Today I'm a day closer to extinction.
Hearse-curtains have been drawn
In every city while the stars remain

Anchored overhead. Really they move
Towards annulment in a proof I cannot
Prove. Soon enough, pattern dissolves.
Let me replace them with these words.

Copyright © 2004 Ravi Shankar All rights reserved
from Instrumentality
Cherry Grove Collections
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission