milk of All Souls'

DARTING GLANCE

               to Reinhard Genzel & Andrea Ghez

For decades, the rival astronomers

– Genzel, male, & female

Ghez – aimed instrumental

eyes toward the heart of the cosmos –

muted piano key of the galaxy.

Genzel flung his telescopic

javelin (atmospheric

annihilator) toward a dusty

shoulder of Chiron (the man-horse,

Sagittarius) while Ghez

gazed from the Andes,

waiting, measuring her course.

From the center of the Centaur

the whisper of a signal,

as from Eye of Bull.

As if from his maze, a Minotaur

murmured – beckoned toward his lair

in the galaxy’s grave

(her gravity-cave,

light-shrouding tomb of Milky Way).

As if across the Black Sea

the shadow of the Argo,

like a winged hippo-

horse, shaped signal-symmetry –

echo of those sunken galleys

encrypted on the salty

floor – an Ariadne-

thread from Sagittarius

                *

as on a line from eye to Ghez

its waver-tremor moved

from Memphis to beloved

son... a bullet-train (just MLK’s).

We’re standing on that floor of sound.

The black hole marks an end

for time & space – a frond

of palm marked Jonah, on a ground

of milky whale-spume.  There

he stands, in her eye

of hurricane – not angry,

mild – her Son of Man, her heir

of air, from navel of gravity

humming his servant-

song (for a new advent

of justice, lovingkindness, charity).

Where Ocean River shapes galactic

horseshoe lakes (whorls,

eddies of fresh worlds

and clear water) your prophetic

Nazir chants his invitation

to return to life – joy

spiraling unceasingly

from springing restoration

of all things; eternity

undying, in that heart

where all the rivers start –

her darting glance, from middle C.

10.31.18