when the earliest stars began—
in lively nurseries of growing nebula
flocking sparks of intelligence
scattered family across the cosmos
as trillions of conducting sparks
then—silver slivers of a dying star
made me from its dream of hope

and as immense residues of infinity
gracefully whisper celestial resolve
in their pale embers of dying light
like ashes so easily swept up by nights
God espoused me with eternity
and a friend—joined beyond time
in the gravities of covenant and trust

now—as my old eyes fade into flint
to humbly close in a fading entropy
I hope to carry one precious virtue
to a never-ending world of spirits
learned within the promises of stars
who shed their tears of divine light
and that constellation is—how to love

(First line from the poem
“There Was a Boy”
by William Wordsworth)