Stars, you are the heavens' flock
Tangling your pale wool across the night sky
Stars, you’re bits of oily fleece catching
On barbs of darkness to swirl in black wind
You appear, disappear by thousands
Scattered wide to graze but never straying
While I, a mere shepherd of these words, am lost
What can I do but build a small blaze
And feed it with branches the trees let fall:
That twiggy clatter strewn along the ground
And lichen crusting such dead limbs glows silver, glows white
The earthfood for a fire so unlike and like your own
Oh, what can I do but build a small blaze