Starfall - Prartho Sereno

[Larry Robinson]

Starfall

We get a few practice runs. One day, 
for instance, as your plane lifts off your life 
passes before you, the city below strewn 
with spent days—at once devastating
and beautiful when spread out this way—
the potholed landscape of catastrophe & grace. 

You’ll feel like the bricklayer watching the weather
take down the walls, the gardener at the fence after harvest, 
the conductor at the window of his emptied train. 

You’ll see the good bits were small but everywhere—
fine threads worked into a coarse weave. You’ll see 
what an immensity it is to walk & breathe & feel things 
for which there are no words. 

You’ll wonder how you missed the tenderness 
of the breezes in your leaves.

You’ll wish you’d done almost everything 
differently. 		Then again 
would you really change a thing?

	- Prartho Sereno