For Stephen Hawking Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

perhaps he made up for us a little

who waste so many chances

to even look at the sky

complaining in the traffic-about-

the sun in our eyes-

in all his wondering whys

his looking back at the broken picture puzzle cracked as

on a vast unchartered track, an endless spiraling,

diamonded, past what anyone else would do

should the thought even occur to them

star mapping Time, first breath christening

and paradoxical flowering into the

personally catastrophic and then, to begin again

as if it were music and the very first bar

picking up the golden thead no one else perceived

and leaving everything but his mind as collateral

for all thieves and enforced loitering, demented roadblocks

as perhaps the price to pay for meddling with the known

conclusions of those who own the prize at the moment

and will not let it go

how odd that he only burrowed farther on

as if he nested then among the stars

there being truly no alternative

and the faraway look in his eyes hardening

crystalized into

the day before the day before..into a shoal of light

no equations of the lost but a firmer step

where for him there was no ground possible

forming the formulated never yet conceived

in syllables no longer couched

in his own human voice

and circumspect

without real wings

there being no other choice;

shutting out all the noise of the self

pitying possibilities

ever more thickly befalling

deformed in the outer world

yet still his bow was bent and the golden

arrows flew so straight

past all anyone knew or could acknowledge, calculate

such a fate he had! and acceleration

the riddle more and more beautiful as he

climbed, nay, crawled toward the summits

oh angel I will not let thee go

except thou bless me

to grasp the fantastic hold he had on measuring

what couldn't be measured they said

once they glimpsed he already had

and were sore amazed

oh let him be laid to rest on a boat of stars

and rowed on the magic waters

home.

mary angela douglas 18 march 2018