Photo by Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography
“The ample harvest of the luminous never.”—Tristan Tzara
What have the starfish
—glowing bright—
stolen from so many millions of stars?
If the information age cannot tell us,
if the digital age cannot,
nor the pulsating electronic nodes constantly circling
in and around our heads,
how can we lull ourselves
peacefully to sleep at night,
content in our ignorance?
Mystery is tangible, is constantly converting
the preying jaws of death
into a rocking chair, a La-Z Boy,
something colored-smooth and reclined.
Life resides here,
there. Death.
Luminous harvest of some ample never,
glowing bright, bright.
Even if you never learned how to swim,
even if you are 20,000 leagues under the sea
swarming in starfish,
it is impossible to drown,
to awake and—in wonder—
believe and be whole again.
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Jeff Alessandrelli lives in Portland, OR. This Last Time Will Be The First, his first full-length collection of poetry, is forthcoming from Burnside Review Press in early 2014. The name of his dog is Beckett Long Snout.