The stars came first

The stars came first

Before the land we thought would last forever

We buried our dead

They remain, fixed in time

We move on, come and go

Until the passing

The sky is never still,

Solar winds and universal

Expansion

Even as we lie

Waiting for the visit,

The laying of flowers.

Somebody always cries

There is a cost to be made

When claiming ownership

Of the intangible

Rolling hills belong to the past,

As much as the future

Is a wet dream of emotion

For the blood of history makers.

Passion is as overrated

As the fallacy of prayer,

Heads are bowed

From the expectation

Of continuance

Returning in remembrance

Feeding the sorrow

With the sweat of leather-faced crones

Bent over from the effort

Of grieving.

There is always room

For self-sacrifice

So the old book says

The presence of hope

A conviction to break free

Of the shackles

The land has placed upon us

Tying the living to the dead

As we make our way beyond

The limits of convention

To be unburdened

By the pointless call to arms

The insatiable cry of dogma

To look up at the stars

Bleed into the majesty

And be forever,

Gloriously in love

With the thought of being,

As nothing less

Than human.