midautumn-night hymn


In the crisp silence of this midautumn night
I hear the moon wrestle the rustling limbs
of oaks that stand like frozen dendrites on the skinned
face of the earth.

In the crisp silence of this midautumn night
I hear the struggled calls of laggard geese
like strangled cries of spirits stripped of strength
by stellar winds.

In the crisp silence of this midautumn night
I stretch across the sterile strata of the sky
to grasp the crucifix galaxy and kiss
its distant stillness.

In the crisp silence of this midautumn night
I fill my lungs with coldness, call your name
and race through crystal forests to embrace
the absence of your voice
and the crisp silence of this midautumn night.

S. A. Oleksy

This photograph was created with support to Space Telescope Science Institute, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., from NASA contract NAS5-26555 and is reproduced with permission from AURA/STScI. Digital renditions of images produced by AURA/STScI are obtainable royalty-free at http://marvel.stsci.edu/


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