Two Suns
February 17, 2011 in Wordsmoker Poetry
I read yesterday in the news that
as early as a year from now,
and just for a couple of weeks,
there could be two suns in the sky.
A star is going to explode and they don’t know when,
but it could be soon!
We could use two suns.
Imagine the things that would not happen
If there were two suns in the sky.
Weeks without dark; imagine the things people wouldn’t say
to each other under two suns.
Imagine the awe.
We could use the distraction, I think.
When I was a kid, watching from the table that winter morning my father
threw my brother up against the glass door by his throat,
I think I had a bite of cereal in my mouth. Did I swallow it?
I didn’t do anything.
There will be other fathers and other sons, and if this star decides to explode
I think they might be different for a little while.
Everyone will!
People will gather outside. Work will be suspended, and men will not have time
to lay hands on their sons or their daughters.
They’ll walk with them and they’ll feel changed somehow.
They’ll try their best to answer their childrens’ feverish questions,
try to remember the thrilling phrasings
of the scientists, and patiently, and feeling like important harbingers
of knowledge bigger than anything they’ve known in their tired and dusty lives,
they’ll try explain what they can about this sudden and strange new blanket of light.
