My Life and I

artwork: ralph murre

    My Life and I

     by Thomas R. Smith

     We are generous with each other,

     though it’s evident anything

     I love instantly becomes his.

     I never tire of his stories, which

     I know for a fact are all true.

     For his part, he listens

     without ridiculing my hopes.

     Where we meet is the moving balance-

     line between memories and plans.

     We make a complete circle, his

     looping behind, my sweeping ahead.

     How could I ever feel poor,

     knowing the note of each moment

     is backed by the gold

     ingots of those decades

     he is carrying for me safely

     in a satchel under his heart?

   ~ first published in The Foot of the Rainbow

     (Red Dragonfly Press)

ASTRONOMY

digital art: ralph murre

ASTRONOMY

by Thomas R. Smith

The unaided eye sees only six thousand stars.

With our best instruments we can, perhaps,

take six thousand galaxies in one gulp of light.

They say the visual frontier of our universe

is now forty-two billion light years.

Are there universes beyond our universe?

At what point do we close the astronomy book

and ask, What have these nebulae and globular clusters,

these star-making dusts of the inconceivable distances

to do with us?  The heart wanders lost

on the white beach of suns in search of

the grain of sand that it calls home.

Breathe deeply.  Step back from the night window

against which galaxies’ moth-wings flutter.

Let God splash day-glo about that vast canvas.

In your own room, with the things you love,

stand among the “pillars of creation.”

You are the place where infinity begins.

  

~ first published in Poetry Ireland Review