Constellations

Walking home under a clear night sky
           a black canvas dotted with millions
upon millions of points of brilliant light
           Orion on the celestial equator clearly visible
the hunter frozen in pursuit of the Great Bear
           Stars the stuff of dreams : the scintillation
that brings warmth and mystery to our lives
            And we are the stuff of stars
our molecules assembled from raw light
           we are photosynthetic products
built from energies that have travelled
           further in space than any astronaut
light racing through the deep darkness
           through the cold expanses of the Milky Way
through the brimful emptiness
           of expanding time

Here in our bodies time becomes
           Time becomes events and relationships
Time becomes expression of time
           Time becomes purpose and meaning
Time reproduces time
           Time comes to an understanding
Here time becomes text

Dwarfed by the immensities of the universe
           we are its mindfulness harbouring
its infinite array of sensitivities
           Light that travelled from the very edges
of infinity to shape a rose
           that she would one day touch
with her lips – the warm red lips
           formed from waves of galactic energy
the glow of human bodies
           the lives that come together to create
conscious constellations of thoughts
           and words and feelings of love

John Lyons