Merle Molofsky
Merle Molofsky
Poet and psychoanalyst: read and resonate
BEFORE THE AFTERMATH, AFTER GENESIS
"Planets are made from interstellar dust, and so are all creatures on planets."
~ Michael Barlow, Astronomer, University College London
Two question marks on their way down a road
encounter each other, decipher the code:
Two question marks, face to face, create a heart.
What were you seeking and what did you find?
What was I seeking in the land of the blind?
What were we asking and what did we learn?
If hearts are aflame -- do they burn?
At the point of intersection,
where we punctuated skin to skin,
we balanced on a single shared point
as each went deep within --
A single supernova formed a ring of cosmic dust,
six million miles or more of light
surrounding what was once
a sun as brilliant as our own,
on fire, bursting, shattered,
a space now turning inward toward
a center cold as cold can be,
minus 240 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale,
a measure we use here on Earth, a life-sustaining planet
in the galaxy forming a pathway,
creamy as mother's milk in an eternity of sky,
brilliant with more gleaming suns
than angels dancing on the head of a pin.
A single supernova formed a ring of cosmic dust,
six million miles or more of light
surrounding what was once
a sun as brilliant as our own,
on fire, bursting, shattered,
a space now turning inward toward
a center cold as cold can be,
minus 240 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale,
a measure we use here on Earth, a life-sustaining planet
in the galaxy forming a pathway,
creamy as mother's milk in an eternity of sky,
brilliant with more gleaming suns
than angels dancing on the head of a pin.
"Where are you going, my pretty maid?"
"I'm going a-milking, sir," she said.
What questions were we asking as we slowly groped our way,
what quest were we attempting in the light show of the night?
What accident of cosmic dust asked questions of the two of us
as somehow somewhere we interlocked
and found the space that kept two hearts apart
and entered into sudden close embrace
and formed the ever-miracle of a questioning single heart:
Is it You? Is it I?
Is it really?