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Sport 25: Spring 2000

Stars

page 28

Stars

I lay all night on a sleepless pillow:
that odd example from a grammar primer
comes to mind as I half-fall, half-roll

out of bed in the early morning
and feel my way for a glass of water.
Sleep, that heavy, storm-tossed thing,

seems like a dark dense heaven
in which some catharsis must be passed:
holding a bridge against foes

swimming for hours in choppy waters
having faith and firm endeavour
for which sleep will stab and release

you. But here by the kitchen door are stars
deeper than sleep could ever take you they
burn into the element they come to cool in

the opposite of us: they burn to go out
in a billion years' time, whereas we
seek a few hours' oblivion to begin.