19. To the Stars Through Difficulty: Israel Wasserstein

We are caught in it, pulled inexorably on—the arrow
points always ahead. Keep time with the clouds
of your breath, faint pulse through your veins.

The stars and their children do not watch,
are unaware. A breath: a great sea stretches beneath
the sweep of the galaxy. A breath: an arrowhead

pierces the sod. A breath: a planet sundered,
or thrown to the void. This is no mournful tale.
In such vastness, we fill our lungs with winter air.

An owl dives. We freeze. The sky keeps its own time.

– Israel Wasserstein