What Lies Above, by Cheney Crow

Apple, NYC, by Paul Caponigro (USA) 1964.

What Lies Above
                                                                                      
This cloud of stars, perhaps a nebula among them,
birthplace of a cluster, coloured sky
we find within a lens of time, of light
that may have traveled to our iris
when our tiny earth was home
to living dinosaurs, an earth
we have diminished, as the stars
we see now may have super-novaed,
may be dead, while others
in this view may still be pulsing,
their rich beat a dance 
gathering galaxies we cannot see.
 
An ant's breath, all we are,
despite the ego's great balloon.

Cheney Crow
​
Cheney Crow lives in Austin, TX, where her yard host to raptors and foxes, a mockingbird boasting loud backup beeps, echos of nearby construction. Her work has appeared in The Cortland Review, Terminus, Best of Tupelo Quarterly, International Poetry (translation).  She's been a teacher, a reader for textbook recordings, poll worker, sculptor, musician, photographer, translator, traveler. Thirsty for life.