✨ Sometimes Even the Stars Are Not Enough

what I tried to tell...

Sometimes Even the Stars Are Not Enough

The field leans like shoal grass where the back bay
bends ‘round jetties in the shallow flats,
as the wind silvers the leaves, and grasses lay
down their browning blades on autumn mats
of shadows dropped from a clouding sky,
and teatime flowers bow and tip their hats.
The day turns light toward the west as I,
moored in time, watch the world course by and reel
across a page, my hand a stranger to my eye.
Beyond the dunes, birds cry from salt marsh creels
or concealed in palms; waves crash in the earth’s shell―
the holder’s hand and ear unseen―the sun kneels
before the night where yesterday’s stars that fell
from unknown heights were discarded with a page
where emptiness eclipsed what I tried to tell.

—Rick Maxson

Used by permission of Rick Maxson. Photo by Dave Hoefler, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.