60 Poem by RIC BASTASA

night murmurs

1. You cannot lock the door
Now, night shall open it
For fireflies to come in
They slept in hiding

Like you, fireflies fly away
Pallid cowards from rain
Lest their lights die in the mist

You wait by the door

As true stars come again
Lighting night skies
My Fireflies shall reveal
Inferior flickers under
The now, brimming
Skies bursting
II.
How many full moons passed
Past your sad window?
Your fingers cannot tell
They’re used to gripping
Rusty doorknobs
A great deal to ancestry
Our human hands corroded
We cannot reach nor outrun
Rust becomes us



III.
If we listen to dawn dreams
We shall hear prophets scream
Nothing
To a mutter

One speaks of the underworld so endless
Unmoving as the sky stretches a distance of lies
No farther
Or it will break

There are no skies no caves
No edges no space
Nothing
To whisper


IV.
We are shooting stars in space
Shot into nothing
Yet we keep on shooting

For the moment
We close down
We set strong feet on land
Like steel gates stilled

We look into our eyes
Tears are dwindling
Thus far, we cannot cease fearing
For nothing




V.
There is God
As the world keeps ears
For each earthworm in the void

He shall hear us
Shouting the questions
Dinning,
Rocking the ruckus of cumulus
In this outcry

He shall know us
By eyes and mouth
By hand by footprints
And the grasses covering all