Our Closest Celestial

In the beginning, it was cold all around. Dark and cold, the kind that seeps into your bones—though in the beginning, you had no bones. No eyes to see light, yet the dream of it was there.

And when it came, light, that’s when you knew: the beginning had passed, and darkness would never again be total. For the light that came was a flaming torch, ever-burning, and it howled in the sky with powerful heat, and you cowered before it.

Perhaps darkness wasn’t so bad.

Time passed, as it must have done, though it could not be measured. The earth blistered with light, spilling molten liquid of its own, trembling with joyous birth. Life sparked, spread. You emerged from your oceanic cave and washed hurricanes over the world’s surface, stripping away the scars, healing. You pulled the tides to blanket with their cooling waters, but you scurried from the burning star each time she reappeared.

You made rhythm from chaos, gathered dust from earth’s exhalation, atmospheric rejection. You took up your post, ever watchful.

When rocks and ice bombarded you, you stayed steady, true.

When the sun burned you, you turned a face away, to preserve some part of you forever.

And when darkness shadowed your favourite planet, you stole just a little fire—to let them know you were still there—and carried it in your reflective, generous heart, despite the heat, the cost.

You empowered countless millions of lives.

Now you wait for the next beginning, when your bones dissolve into stardust and are reborn. In the absolute cold of vacuum, your songs dance to infinity with a beauty greater than fire, while the life you protected wonders at such shine.