Ephemeris by Gregory Corso

I am landing on a telescope’s gaze, a peek through sparking time - ten million years, a light from the sun that paints what came before, and the moon, an eye in secret, gathering stories to tell the soil, I whisper echo leads: each leaf shows me how to fly, how childhood dances down the fading ground.

I am lost more, when the stars push behind my ear, telling me, ‘wave your jokes, unhinge our poisons each smirk meets any sky.’ I make room for shadows, letting go where I’ve dived, I’m never going back.

The earth is this holy trance of green and blue, and I chill underneath the celestial before-mat, in the fuzzy dusk, the nature of an evening kisses my words loose, I’m gathering waves of time, a thimble of magic, a child of stars.

• Gregory Corso