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POEM: Fragments of a Stained-Glass Meteorite

April 10, 2006
by Howard V. Hendrix

Day by stages dies into night.
Our minds make constellations in the stars,
The stars make constellations in our minds.
Threads dropped from the tall tapestry of steadier stars
turn lit fuses in falling,
each a lambent lotus-petaled spear
from a diamond bud --
blooming, flying, burning, dying.

From fragments of stained glass meteorites --
olivines and pyroxenes,
in photomicrographs all reds and greens --
let us build a telescope
to spy that mountain falling across heaven,
flashing self-consuming at the touch of air,
until in its rush we hear the children
of a generation beyond generation
singing to their parents
as birds do, to dinosaurs.