i wonder
why do they call it a bowl of stars?
like, here i am,
base of a bowl and looking up -
and it is walled by pines
and it is rimmed with foliage
and then sky, space, stars, all that -
i am a point of consciousness
and my vision presents a clear convexity
anyway,
the shoulders of giants are broken branches
each giant has many shoulders
and they form a vestigial continuum
time passes, from star to ground,
like it's all stars and space and spheric layers
and then - this bowl -
from branches decked and bound with needles
trunks ending here
with mere pocks and bumps
it's here, where ferns like me all shaded quicken
in the remains of green and sparkling things
then roll out tomorrow in cotswoldic meadows
i pinch a leaf
to see if it's real,
i sit opposite a countryside pub
it's so snooty, my friend back home knew it
by reputation
i reimagine it, for something to do
i drink a lime and soda
i think about cultivating a god-like perspective. approaching perfect love, perfect forgiveness. like, sure, anyone can say that. but it's like each star is its own infinity of principal foci, each one implying its own inflection point; these can all be organised into sets of extreme points, each with their own convergent and divergent infinities, and then all of those with their unions and intersections, those realised and not, realisable or not. it's a complicated vector space, that's for sure. it's just like, all the stars have their own bowls, you know? to be able to look at things in that way, to even be aware of it, to catch a glimpse of it on a clear night. for me, ultimate love and ultimate forgiveness seem to be the necessary consequent. don't ask me how. i don't think you need to believe in a god for this. i'm not sure if i do. maybe i do, somehow. it's not like i could reach it myself.
if i look up for long enough
they all start to move
