I never look for stars here. They pale
next to LA’s green unearthly glow spreading sixty miles.
My father, I don’t think of him when I think of stars,
distant and cold. He sang, Don’t let the stars get in your eyes,
don’t let the moon break your heart,
then a long Perry Como trope ending with for you’re the only one I’ll ever love.
Fast falls the eventide, wind feathers the artemisia,
silken and murmurous as tropical grammar.
Now darkness moves slowly through him with seasons, occasions,
like sarabande, that courtly dance of the 17th century—
of Cancer it is written, a body black and without eyes,
and of sarabande, a grave melody expressing no passion
other than ambition. I don’t think of stars here,
that starry night unfurls somewhere further out
on the other side of the Transverse Range, where Cancer’s
visible to the salt-ringed eye, the beehive cluster pulsing,
her weak oil lamps hanging over us all.