‘Outer Space Love Letter’ and other poems

Laura Swearingen-Steadwell

June 3, 2015

Outer Space Love Letter
after Galaga

The eye is a time machine.
Out here we age slowly

so consider this blast
a smoke signal

your ancestors sent
scores ago

while you spin quick
on your turf; is it

every green, blue
still? We debate that.

We debate the birds
and oceans, mostly.

We remember
gazing up at night

in hope,
the sky full of ghosts

as we are    a memory
moving faster than a jet

through the dispassionate black.

 

---

 

 

Walker
after MYST

My journey ends
when I’ve transcended
the whole perimeter,
seen the ocean shimmer from
all angles. The cold black
waters of Maine; earthy and lax Mid-
Atlantic; obscene Technicolor
heaven in the South. No partner, no
daughter swinging my hand, singing.
I’ve been walking
all my life. Sometimes I see joy and stop
to watch.
Walk
the beach
long enough, you learn the reach of
sky, you learn machines’
pristine earth
and clay, see the green spirals,
tendrils, leaf
and bud
from under
the sand, where
it fades:
there. Stone.

 

---

 

 

stellar evolution
after Paratrooper

when the sun is gone
we may be done
changed too far
to care

our small star
gone gold to dark
no more to count
clocks bent

more space than
dreamed in
sleep or quest
the rest

of it all
ours to fall
through
new

peace no ghosts
in black the most
we be in night
is light