Christopher Impiglia is a writer and art book editor based in New York. He received an MFA in Fiction from The New School and an MA in Medieval History and Archaeology from the University of St Andrews. His words have appeared in ‘Kyoto Journal,’ ‘Columbia Journal,’ and ‘EuropeNow,’ the journal of the Council for European Studies at Columbia University, among others. Follow him on Twitter at @Impigliato

 

The Stars

 

I saw the stars tonight,

and know they saw us

just as we see them:

 

as pinpoints of light

in a vast pointillist canvas.

 

As their earthly parallel

made by the same master

but of different material:

 

they: of dying light,

us: of living pulses.

 

And just as some stars burn brighter than others,

so it is true of you:

 

the focus of their lofty perspective,

their Polaris, their Sigma Octantis.

 

Without you, unanchored by your glow

they would wander aimlessly,

lose themselves in their heavenly sea,

unraveling the constellations,

 

leaving gaping holes

through which we would fall

each night we gazed up at the sky,

 

swallowed by the ever-expanding darkness,

consumed by nothingness.

 

~

New Worlds

 

First, all was nothing:

 

darkness upon darkness.

 

Then, we played our hands at God:

we reached and grasped and touched and caressed,

we crafted and molded and heated and quenched,

and we relinquished to witness

the two new worlds we created:

 

The first one is without you:

desolate, parched, scorched—

the true pilgrim’s path and ultimate test.

 

The second one is with you:

lush, humid, bountiful—

the settler’s dream until realized

and the insects torment and the plain no longer beckons.

 

We should have remained in the darkness,

the only forms in the formlessness,

to undulate endlessly

as the substance of dreams.