Cosmology

Christopher Buckley

Most days I find myself

considering the encrypted

clouds, though, while everything

is blue through the boughs

of heaven, I know the stars

will hardly spell out

our names in specks

across the enormity（巨大，暴行） of night.

We have these bodies

from stars, second-hand,

a diminishing（逐渐缩小的） quotient

of dust lagging behind

the soul, beggar with a cart --

told sticks, furniture

piled on. . . .

You're tired,

your bones positioned on

the couch each evening to ruminate,

to remember where you left off

taking notes, floating

suppositions, a few

unlikely alternatives,

before they fall, like

the last remaining cloud

into the sea,

before the stars

scar your thoughts

and the moon freezes

the lemon blossoms,

another vague（模糊的） brilliance

abandoning you . . . .

More dust glimmers

before dawn

where you can see

the back of the sky

shouldering empty space,

confirming nothing --

the dulled earth

just another rock,

where we came from --

a few molecules rewired,

bunched up now and

heading off. . . .

You've come this far

with holes in your shoes,

leaves in the pockets

of your coat -- all you have

finally to show for hunting

the proposition of God

in the burning clouds,

in the invisible web

of air, in the one

petrified vowel of space.

Your only hope now

is to not bear false witness

against the sea, the unknowable

scattershot of stars.

for Jon Veinberg