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Farewell Of Dying Stars


She read it in the Times,
Mother says from her hospital bed.
Clouds of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium,
hourglasses, pinwheels, tropical blossoms,
veils of luminous gasses as planetary nebulae
swell to vastness then
begin a tumultuous collapse.

I read it, too. A star dies: beauty, baffling
in its intricacy. Sculptures in the sky,
visions from Van Gogh's crazed mind.
After a billion years,
nothing but a hot core and a thin-fast wind.

Shapes and colors, then, at last, the brilliant core
cools to stellar embers.

Mother, too, is collapsing into
herself. Wheels and blossoms. An hourglass.
On clear nights, I try to fan
stellar embers.

Natural Defenses


A risk-taker, I've never mastered
the art of protection

as a tree defends itself
against a giraffe
with bitter tannin that stops forage
and warns downwind
of danger. Or as a trout
hooked in a river
releases pheromones to alert
those swimming downstream.

Your reflexes, the fisherman warned,
slow down as you get older.

He was not speaking of fishing,
of course. But I,
disarmed by a taste for intensity,
less savvy than
trout or tree, forgot
to prepare myself for pain.
Even an old giraffe
remembers to browse upwind.

© All Copyright 2001, Susan Terris.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.