Even Cancer’s sign is an illusion
an apparent constellation whose
bright stars once passed
in their slow celestial waltz
jabbing needles of ancient light
without synchronicity
into our night sky
where metastatic stars
white as bone
seed across the black dome
some receding, some burning out
before we see the light
that proclaims them in their prime.
*
Massive sedimentary slabs
line this carved-out gully
a sliced loaf of sandstone
laid down season on season
all obliquely shoved up
at a jaunty tilt to tease
at what past ruptures
the crust has suffered
and over here, pancakes stack
against the sculpting waves
while inland stand caverns
of slow hollowed limestone.
*
Now I wonder at these clouds
these great wet clods of sky
how they hold together
to float in such fabulous forms
tonnes of droplets undispersed
high and wistful here
but thunderous over that range
water that takes the light from white
through bruise to bouquet shades
that shift with the late sun’s slant.
*
And you, too
stratified in mood and mind
taking shape through life and tide
you too
host a singularity
of burnished golden cirrus
diffracting colour from our sun
where old light fades
while love still finds
fresh spark in cyclic clouds
of dust and water
the patterned self
so soon to scatter.