LUCIEN STRYK
Star Gazer
(for Ted on his eighteenth birthday)
Drifts of wind strike old
music through the air,
concert of dusk smothered
in the bedlam-tires screeching
by the pavement where I tap
my heels with strangers,
waiting the traffic light.
Under a starling ballet
round St. Martin's spire,
I watch a beggar searching
through a rubbish bin.
And were we made of stars?
My grandson thought so once.
Close to me, singing purely,
"There was a man lived on
the moon." Was his name
Aiken Drum? Now grown, half–
way across the world, wi th
such a cold, clear sky, does
he remember as he aims his
telescope? Can he make out
a cloud no bigger than a wintry
breath covering that half
moon? Will he follow planets
until dawn sli ps over night?
