Yes, only one star is visibly here
tonight and yes, it is saying
then, then, then like a white dog
and it is saying before you were born,
saying I was before you were born,
before you or any of this was thrown
knock-kneed into a struggle for breath, I was
and you do not know if I am anymore,
wild grasses along the roadside
are nodding heavily in sad, old-man agreement,
every little blade visibly agreeing,
though at different times, and in varying frequencies
according to the heft of each single heave;
and yes — continuing from my street
along and slowly down the blue-black oak hill
and over the stone bridge over a pebble burn
to the next family of lights —
the end of the fencepost trail
and the end of the line of the curves
are always evading the last point of sight,
which appears to say
continue, to say
follow like a dog or a man
led by a dog, since you do not know where you are anymore;
and yes, okay, the star is even blinking now leg-tremblingly
as if it was a shivering old man before there were old men,
to nail its point into the sky,
to repeat for now and tonight the word fragility,
appearing to curve a visibly broken line
and yet all that travels beyond it is now
will we continue to love
though we remain
heaved and blind and not yet born.