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The Other Side of Stardust

A girl was walking through the night
Afraid and all alone
She sunk for moments of respite
Upon a blackened stone.

What flakes were these that sparkled bright
And flurried in the breeze?
What specks of gold did grace the night
And rest upon the trees?

Up from her perch she stumbled on
Into the silent black
But 'twas in vain, the specks were gone
So then she foundered back.

She found the stone on which she set
All laid with dust around
The stars of heav'n the earth had met
And blanketed the ground.

The stardust, now a handbreadth thick
Had melted from the sky
She saw a once sedate old crick
With flames now floated by.

She gathered stardust in her hand
And held it by her face
It hovered there, in ways unspanned
Held up by empty space.

Her face did glint with motes of gold
Her wavy hair did gleam
The stroke of twelve the townclock tolled,
Around her shone a beam:

She looked to see its molten source,
The sun had joined them too;
In place of burnished bronze its force
Was emanating blue.

With both her hands she caught the sun
And held him firmly there
She shook him gently just for fun
And threw him in the air;

"Oh, Sun, how come you left the sky
To be a little ball?
Wherefore from glory did you fly
And now art pale and small?"

Then said the sun, " The stars had left
They had a merry time
And all alone I felt bereft
So moved to sweeter clime;

Said he, "It was so cold and still
Without my fellow stars,
All scattered 'round upon this hill
As far away as Mars;

So here I came to be a ball
Of bright electric blue
My starry kin with wit appall
And have a chat with you."

"Oh, Sun, you do not understand!
The day is black as night
Now who will fill this darkened land
With rays of warmth and light?

"And what of you?" she asked the dust
That sparkled at her feet.
"Back to the sky I think you must
Your twinkling forms repeat."

"Now truth we see," quoth ev'ry star
In one according rhyme,
"Back to the sky we'll roam afar
Until the end of time."

Then said the sun, "Oh, now I see,
I thought that I was trite
So back the way I was I'll be
To shed abroad my light."

Then off they rushed in waves of flame
Their rightful place to gain;
No man can e'er the heavens tame,
That surely isn't plain.

Whene'ere alone in dark of night
That girl recalls her friends:
And now I think the time is right
So here my story ends.


~Written December 25th 2012

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