Our Beloved Dead

All the stars are swimming home

behind the skies.

Orion flees the coming dawn—Eos—who

once lured him to his death.

The little dipper dips and disappears, submerged

beneath a golden broth.

The great bear slouches off to sleep in her cave

stars strewn like straws across her stone bed;

The centaur and the arrow fade.

The scorpion buries her claws in burning sands

and bows down, reverent, to Day….

And our Beloved Dead fade also from view.

Like stars or dreams they are not lost to us,

only hiding in their other home,

peering out the windows of Death’s dark longhouse.

Maybe, beloved, it is not abandonment

when they leave us like this,

flowing unstoppably away from our eyes.

Maybe, instead, they tender us some fruitful mercy

by moving their lightships on,

where Dawn’s blazing shores

give way to the continent of our daily lives.

Now, into that space swept clean by stars

we may be able to live our myths,

ever-indebted to our ancestors,

whose hardwon hiraeth is heralded

upon our living souls.