Travelers

Once in a long while, even by star-time,
a very, very few come sailing across
the deep, gem-encrusted sky,
singular rebels on an irresistible,
elliptical journey.

The ancient sky-watchers knew them,
called them “travelers.”
To these they gave names,
ascribed natures, emotions,
virtues, flaws,
imagined intercourse with one another and
influence over the trajectories
of our histories.

Moderns call them dirty snowballs,
minor accretions of dust and ice,
cosmic flotsam caught in the trailing tide
of the sun following a predictable, periodic path.
But we who are also travelers
know the truth: life is movement, wondering, wandering.

And when against all probability
two travelers cross, their wakes
touching, co-mingling
in the dark, vast waters of their journey,
then the heavens come alive.

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