The Rebels
Narrated by Nitin Jagdish
Maryland
THE REBELS
Star-striken still
we lie under them
in dome of night
as they wheel about
in their revolutions
forming and reforming
their splendiferous
phosphor fabrications
Ah the wheelwright of it
(whoever he or she or it)
chief fabricator
of the night of it
of the night to set it in
this cut-glass
diamond diagram
Upstairs
in the lighted attic
under the burning eaves
of time
lamps hung out
(to guide far more far-out voyagers
than ourselves)
Still antic stars
shoot out
burst out –
errant rebels
even there
in the perfect pattern
of some utopia
shooting up
tearing the
silver web
As in a palm of hand
the perfect plan of line
of life and heart and head
struck across of a sudden
by one
cataclysmic tear
Yet all not asunder
all not lost in darkness
and held together still
at some still center
even now
in the almost incendiary dawn
as still another
rebel burning bright
strikes its match upon
our night