I feel like staring skyward at night should be the same
As staring at the inside of one’s slumbering eyelids,
But no; darkness comes in different flavours,
Some more comforting than others.
So stare off into space
In that way you were once chided for,
There’s friendship to be found
In the all-surrounding firmament
You see yourself in it, after all,
(The way you do in every other thing)
Like a magpie bobbing round a looking glass
Searching for the source of the shine –
No understanding
But some close-minded self-recognition
Don’t worry, the view will tear that open in time,
As it does to itself and everything else.
Ever a unique and peculiar paradox;
Paroxysms sprouting from such barren fabric
Torn like old jeans, with the contents
Of everything worn on its sleeve,
Immune to belief, and to age,
Empty pages filled with fractal dots
Each at least a world,
And you wonder now whether
It’s you or the universe being unfurled.
Terrible friend.
I’m sitting here, love-struck and subsumed;
You’re ever the giver, and ever consuming.
You’re everything.
And I’ll peer evermore
Into the star-crowded dark,
Spiral down in the detail,
Try to see the bigger picture –
A mandala pattern of chaos and order:
The spread of light endless,
The darkness ever broader,
And it fills up my head.
It feels like counting nothing should
Be easier than counting sheep,
Yet still, I cannot sleep.
John Clifford Poetry 