MEMORY OF A FAR AWAY STAR

for Al A. 

memory of a faraway star
haunts me from a distance
until realization sets the
stage of every last stance
spread out upon a manifold
flower whose darkling petals
unfurl beneath and above and
beyond every line in radiance
which lends assistance to eye
sights begun from scattered
pollen adrift on celestial
winds clearly revealing
darkness to be the velvet
surface of an unreachable
rose stemmed from a well
whose depth reaches back
to the soil from the oldest
lands of our youth we left
behind on the day our eyes
opened brighter than now
and our quest shattered
the union of our ka-tet
into re-emergence from
any one of a billion plus
tinkled pinpoints buried
in the lightburst silence