A Banquet of Stars

Don’t wither, stand firm these fretful days
Won’t the glaciers calve as we chant our praise?
Won’t the stars recede to their noble berths
When we frankly ask: who of us dies first?
Are we strong enough, is our chorus heard?
Know your song as pure, be a midnight bird.

Wait as one shipwrecked, trusting in rescue
Even shattered or weak, we have fear to subdue
So resist vanishing into fine ocean sand
Or these crystals of ice melting in your hand.
Take your cosmic aim, pierce the far galaxy
Know your song as pure, let your heart stay free.

Burn the mind’s incense through grief or despair
Every jewel in your eye was once unaware.
What ancients foretell in a voice not heard
A breath of power will arise unperturbed.
No gust can devour, no river engulf
Know your song as pure, bow to silence itself.

One promise remains as our sole reprieve
From the depths within such treasures retrieve
As the heart’s true poise and the patience to wait
For a moment’s grace at the Deathless gate.
When the hails rain down, you just persevere
Know your psalm as pure, light will soon appear.

Be the waves, be the sea, circle wide and deep,
Be the prairies wild, and the mountains steep.
As in all that is lived, in the knowing seen
Every season dies and the winds in-between.
Chanting peace in the world, in the shadows of fear
Know your psalm as pure, why believe what you hear?

Now the mind’s gone quiet and you thought you knew
But your psalm stayed pure when the storm came through.
Emerge from the dream healing lifetime scars
Letting clarity surge in a banquet of stars.
Knowing cold and peace, value stillness alone
Then we learn just this – life’s continuing poem.

Yes, unblinding Truth can’t be chemo’d away
Waking up can we hear a new rhapsody?
Travel empty and wise in the mouth of a whale
To the far galaxy, tell this strangest tale.

© Ayyā Medhānandī, 2025
ice crystals photo © Ursula Noircent, 2024