(After Laurens Van Der Post The Heart of the Hunter)
When the stars lent you
part of their heart,
and sent the same to me,
was it perhaps, could it be,
the heart of the same star,
that greatest of all stars,
which thus we came to share?
Every so often you will gaze at the night sky,
as I at mine, however afar,
and I will be glad for that star
and its light in you,
as you will be glad for mine.
One cannot confine nor carry a star,
yet we, sensing its glimmer within-
that brave unquenchable,
yet tender-frail flame-
we will yearn for our star,
to know its full power,
we will weep for its distance
and long to be with it;
we will search for our kind
whose eyes know the fire,
and, as power meets power,
at once rouse and soothe desire.
There wisdom thrives; there courage aspires.
And at the last,
this earth-bound time well spent,
we will, like fireflies flickering in the vast sky
light our way back to our precious birth star,
our source, our end, and our forever.
