The Milky Way
As if a child spilled onto the night sky
his bowl of cereal, dripping with milk
so too, I caught my breath tonight
before it could join the galaxy up there.
I am the child beneath these ancient stars.
Dark rivers swirl light:
whirlpools, sinking out of reach.
My faint sparkle drowns.
In this way my thoughts tremble,
in fear of a power that silences me
as before a parent, seething inside,
in awe of a force that makes me nothing,
a mess of feelings, splashed on the ground.
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Well, I wrote this a couple weeks ago when I was out in Utah and I could see the Milky Way. I could see it every night. And it was amazing every time. I'm constantly in awe of the vastness and greatness of the universe, life, existence, and such and I wanted to express that. The opening lines just sort of came to me as I was stargazing and then the three lines in the middle, well... ever since I read the Iliad, I've been slightly fascinated by extended metaphors - a metaphor where a change occurs not in the original
object, but in what it's being compared to. The idea of it intrigued me, and I haven't really seen it in any modern poetry, so I've been thinking recently that I'd like to reintroduce it or something. Anyway, that's some of the stuff that went into this poem. Hope you enjoy it!
