Poem for the Day

Poetry is good for the soul.

"The Creation of the Night Sky"
by Nicholas Christopher

Behind the rising curtains of mist
a small man in a long coat is riding a bicycle
along a cliff: though he can't reach
the pedals, he keeps licking up speed.
Breakers are crashing on the reefs.
A firl wearing goat bells on her ankles turns cartsheels.
In a stone building in bare cells
naked old men are sipping tea through straws.

If there is a city in heaven,
if there is a heaven, one of them thinks,
imagine the marble: brilliantly speckled,
with swirls of silver glittering
against a depthless black.
If there is music - as there must be -
it is played on pianos clear as ice,
tinkling across space, never reaching a human ear.

At high tide the plants swell and the sand
darkens from below, like a bruise.
On the horizon umbrella-shaped clouds are opening
Then the rain comes: dark lines on a diagnal, lightly smudged
A bicycle without a rider is negotiating
the winding trail down the mountain.
And in the silen expansive as the seafloor
the stars light up, singly at first, then all at once, blazing.