Meteors

[Ilya Shambat]

What is the truth of power?
What can refute all lies?
Look at a meteor shower
In clear midnight skies.

Between the fluffy clouds
In Arizona sky -
Between the fears and doubts -
Between the "you" and "I" -

Carrying time and matter
From the galactic heights,
Into the skies they scatter
And sanctify the night.

Meteors, stone and metal,
Burning up in their flight -
Look at their skill and mettle!
Look, and gain second sight!

Look at the sparks in heaven!
Look, and see with your eyes -
Six, seven, eight, eleven -
Look, and be mesmerized!

Hailing from worlds unknown -
Rich with the universe -
Ice, fire, earth and stone -
Passion and speed and force!

Look at the truth they carry -
That they wish to impart -
See how they wish to marry
Earth with galactic heart!

Meteors, bits of planets -
Parcels of cosmic dust -
Iron and gold and granite
From an uncharted past -

Here they come into present
And bring inside their core
Pieces of the Incessant
Into Forevermore.

How do I rise to meet you
Before you burn in flight?
How can the human greet you
And understand your plight?

How can the stars and atoms,
Each one its own world,
Be in their essence fathomed
And in their truth unfurled?

Sun lights us, and we heed him -
Sun is the source of light -
But how much greater wisdom
Comes from eternal night?

Measure them, know them, see them -
Numerous like the sand -
Capture what they conceive and
Try, try to understand

Everything that they know
All that they have within -
Know them as they bestow
Their sainthood and their sin.

Meteors, flying toward us,
From the unknown worlds -
Messages that night forwards
And with its chill enfolds -

Mysteries wrapped in darkness -
Catch them before they burn -
From the unfathomed, chartless,
Space, they to us return.

And with your head in clouds -
Or on a satellite -
Meet them; yes, meet the crowds
Of meteors in the night -

Look at them as you tower
And fathom as they fly
The reverse meteor shower:
Souls reaching for the sky.

Ilya Shambat
https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambatpoetry