Barnard's Star

after Ann Druyan

I send for you my heartbeat,
the rhythms of my latest dream.
You are just now finding the frozen clicks
of muscles, cooling like just-parked cars.
Through endless fields of fire and dust,
we send whale song, one noisy kiss.

Every other romance
is nothingness now, every whale
a great cage of bone and blue air.
But fast to you, bright Ophiuchus,
one whispered love is dancing.





More about the Voyager Golden Record here.
Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow, tells her love story here.

Solace

The heaviest clouds are memories now,
and each thorn gives up its rain.
I dreamt I saw your shadow,
a flicker at the edge of the meadow.
Every step took me hours and hours,
and when I reached you you had gone.
In the trampled grass where the doe makes her bed,
a damp and budding armful: peony, lavender,
strawberry, thistle.
These are the flowers of my heart,
and in new sun they will bloom.







painting by Cassandra Barney

Ganymede's Petition to Hera

My lady, I swear to you,
I am not worth these eagles.
This is no cup that I have known,
My small hands cannot lift it.

My lady, I swear to you,
My flock has lost their eyes.
The wool has all been wasted.
My father died a thin man.

My lady, I swear to you,
My feet long for the dry earth.
My lord's most endless Titan thighs
are no home to my heart.




illustration by Lovis Corinth
more about Ganymede here

Driving Home, Dayenu

The red-tailed hawk in the parking lot,
tracking me as I found my car.

The black bulk of the vulture
by the dry side of the highway.

The robin picking rock salt
from the deepest driveway cracks.

(A heart will swell until it bumps a rib
when the eyes report such wonders.)

If it had been these three,
it would have been enough.

Pangaea

She was born soft and green, a spot
on the ocean. The night sky bore down
with ten million stars, and each wave wove
her muddy joints tighter.

It seemed like whole aeons, the thick ice
and the flames, the soles
of her feet hard
and cracked from the strain.

Her gaze floated away. Below the stone of her heart
a glacier keened, tore and lost itself
to the sea.



photograph by Timothy Erickson

The Hummingbird Goes for an EKG

The room is hot. The window
is honest, cold like the leads clipped
to my shoulders and ankles. The wires
splay in a gray corona, marking where this heart
is buried.

Relax, says the nurse. She is darker, prettier
than her older sister. She flips a switch,
lays a flat hand on my chest.

It's fine, says the doctor, a few minutes later.
Fast -- so fast -- but fine.





photograph by Bobby Acree

A Reading from the Letter of Joan of Arc to the Adolescents

for Sunshine

God knows it isn't easy
being fourteen. Breasts alone
are strange enough; don't get me started
on the tinny chorus of expectations,
the fire in your dreams. It has taken me
more than a little time to get it
but trust me, when you feel your heart thrum
strong and sure in your chest you will know
what breasts are for. When the king plants
an iris in the swollen dark earth, when your mother
lays your armor to sleep deep in the ground,
you will see how your brave bright love
was never the wrong choice.



photograph by Charlotte Miceli

Airport Run, Friday Night

I drove through clouds to get to you.
They whirled from the sky, clinging to my mirrors,
and I could not discern how to wipe them away. This love
was a long time coming. Against the arch
of a rain-blurred rock near the highway
someone has painted two names,
a plump, resistant heart between them.



photograph by Eliza

6pm Reading, St. Anthony Hall

I.
There is no curtain for the heart
In a room full of poets. Each face maps
Its suffering, its lust with lines
As subtle as mountain ranges.

II.
The sign language translator exaggerates
For his single subject. He rolls his eyes,
Fans his fingers, captures the nerves
As well as the words.

III.
The day draws to a close. Light
Is blue, green, white. Shadows dissolve
And reform with every dusted moment. The speaker
Dabs at his eyes, clutches his throat.

IV.
His voice says roller skates, chaperon
But nobody’s father.
Whether he is overcome or near to,
The hot currents of emotion
Will not leave him dry.

V.
He is washed again and again against
The rocks of sorrow, and the hollow shell
Of his voice calls back.



photograph by Manish Desai

Margaret in Medical School

"We took out the heart today," she writes.
"It was so much bigger than I thought it would be,
and those veins in all directions...so beautiful." She tells me
how she fainted, how the generous cadaver seemed to rise as she fell.

Forwarding Address

after Lady Brett Ashley

I do not write you enough
Love letters. You must have
A new hiding place for them by now;
That cigar box beneath the bed was three bare flats
And two cities ago. Times have changed,
My sky-eyed darling, but the raw hole still remains
Right where you left it,
In my breast.



photograph by RedheadRaye

Love Letter to the Sea Walnuts

What purpose can this pulsing serve?
My own heart rises to meet you. There are strands
within this cloud, cells that flash
with the cold regularity
of the MGM Grand. I cannot believe you,
little ones, and you will never know
that the hot fog smearing your sky
has passed across my parted lips.




Jellies may have been invisible, but they were never unimportant.
Exhibit wall, The New England Aquarium


photo by Rachel Blumenthal

The Death of the Hummingbird

Suddenly the sky (Yes, always yes, since you
were bold enough to ask) is too fast.
The ground too, the twigs and grasses
that reached like children yesterday today
are mad and waving.

You do not close your eyes,
but fall and feel the slowing
of a blurred heart,
and the busy little priests of your parasites
all chant the same last rites.






Uria by Audrey Kawasaki
Hummingbird body from Cassandra Barney