PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Then, we did not normally think of the sun as a star;

but it is, and the light with which it illuminated the

world was, and is, starlight.  I am thinking of a

particular kind of sunlight---most often weekend's light;

most of Saturdays' morning and afternoon light,

dispelling the previous workweek's shadows.

I saw it, most frequently, in your presence, or in the

eager (sometimes breathless) anticipation of your presence.

Shimmering in the profuse curls of your long hair; or

caressing your torso, bare beneath the unbutonned

panels of your shirt; or warming the sidewalks'

pavement, or the strips of grass beside it---over which

your slender feet (unshod, but sheathed in the

fragrant softness of midnight blue crew socks) glided.

We knew, from the beginning of that summer, together,

that Thursday, September Ninth, was always drawing nearer

bringing eleven weeks of enforced separation;

that each of our Friday and Saturday nights, together,

was, when gone, one less in the season that remained.

(Even after that, on the campus---alone among some

two thousand other students there---I still received

glimpses of that light, as if you were still close,

although that place was two hours and how many

miles, I did not know, northeast of the summery

roads and venues we had shared together.

No, we did not often think of the sun as a star;

nor as a star of our own; but it is and was.  And

when you led me to the name, Starwatcher---a

c.b. handle to most, but to me an appellation

which (after almost eighteen years of parental

objection) bestowed upon me a liberation,

assembling a new personality, no longer

dependent on or solicitous of their

prejudiced approval and validation.

Starward

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