Four Children

There were four of us, and we flew
higher than the heavens; high enough
to look down upon the blanket of stars
wrapping the universe, and laugh
at all those puny mortals who could not see
that all their lives the wool was being pulled across their eyes,
that the universe was fooling them,
that they lived and loved
in a cosmic fish tank.

But one of us flew too close to the great blazing sun
that truly lights the universe,
and the wax of his wings melted away
and ran blazing down his arms
in a stream of electric fire.

One of us got caught in an eddy
between two glowing nebulae,
her eyes growing wide
as she saw the birth of universes
and the death of worlds,
whirled away in the stream
of birth and death,
the eternal night sky.

Two of us returned to earth
to weep over what we lost.
I ran and whispered to the night
until the sea embraced me and I let go;
she watched me run, let me go,
and was soon consumed,
blistering skin and hair flaming like Medusa’s snakes,
in a skyborne pillar of fire.