Welcome Stranger

WELCOME STRANGER

Everywhere dark in the void,
layered like ice crystals,
natel wet and fecund,
squirming like larva,
planets are born
and die.

Their interstellar couplings
ripping at the base fabric of the universe,
actually are no more than
scarlet wind snakes racing over red dunes,
near yellow oceans and green skies;
merely rippling concentric rings
swirling across the surface of tiny puddles
in God's eye.

We mortals toil,
with the salt of our sweat staining white
on the leather of our harness,
bone-weary beneath the burdens that we built
with our two hands;
before running as quietly as we can
past the terrible dangers
lurking, waiting, measuring our every step,
sprinting deep into a dark forest
that we imagine we are seeing
for the first time.

Something
stops us dead
in our tracks;
with our lids and fists clenched,
and our breath spewing mist;
something
beautiful.

A voice,
soft, high, and calming,
in penetrating porous pulsating
perfect pitch;
singing,
look to the stars,
listen to the poetry of the planets,
and the sonorous songs of the swarm.
Happiness
looms above you,
like a monolithic mound
with a rainbow in its mouth.

Listen, please,
There.
Can you hear it
Rapping at your door
at last ?

Glenn Buttkus 1986