Scape Poem by Ernest Hilbert

He's stranded in a place remote and sunless,
Wonders if, in fact, he brought himself
Here or was placed by another on this shelf,
So he rests on stone to watch the old stars turn,
Golden Pisces diving to plunge at Pegasus,
Aquarius recoiled before vast Cetus,
Lighting the ruin, and may never learn
Why he woke here or where he is, unless...

Is this an arrival or alarming return?
One stairway climbs into sheer stone.
Another drops off a cliff's verge—
Nothing to drink, and nothing to burn.
He knows only that he is left alone,
Waiting, unaided, for meaning to emerge.
Above him—undreamed, an inferno—lie
The archaic stars whose light still shapes the sky.