From Everywhere On Earth

Every night I have a dream of a child gazing
            upwards . . .
from every city in the world, from vast valleys and
            countrysides . . .
From everywhere in space these reflections are seen
            inwards as
billions of eyes beneath, occasionally flickering upwards, noting
something, like a mystery, bestirs them; though now, antalized
by the ticking of the modern clock, enthralled by a range of electrical
channels where, once, the myth-tales of the
            constellations reigned:
Now, the jealous gods are walking into our homes,
            influencing
and corrupting, enlightening and confusing: every
            conceivable tale
walking into our minds porous as a border fence;
            viewers staring
through an invisible wall, as if there he lies or she lies,sleepless
as the child

These stars experienced from everywhere on the planet
these billions of eyes underneath, occasionally flickering upwards
in ascent, meeting, I suppose, at the moon, the crescent nail Leda,
or in Apollo’s
glowing lantern-chariot rising over the vast oceanic
            galaxy of modern
telecommunications; cameras panning into each other’s bedrooms;
verities on parents, siblings, blacksheep friends, blood-spangled
wars between religious extremes

These are the stars that are divined from anywhere on the sphere
by those billions of prismatic, kaleidoscopic eyes and ears
like tides pulled to sea to contemplate the shores’
            cacophony

Every night I dream of a child gazing upwards, a glowing coal
from every city in the world pulling a warm box over
his shoulders: filling her empty belly—in the vast
            rebirth

Michael S. Morris