Rituals

by Duncan Forbes
(Cincinnati, Oh.)

To pause and glance at Jupiter,
one silver brooch fixed to a cobalt spread,
so constant as the chaos he deters,
unlike those cosmic tearaways
we name--precisely name--the Perseid.
Whose soul is wincing as the comet nears,
to decimate Jove's heart of hurricanes?--
I was entranced once by the comet's glare,
with azure head dress seething in a train
of icy veils and crudded stone that blurs
the darkest track it swept, then left as thought.
Marooned I deem, though feeling much averse
to brazen, filthy remnants swiftly wrought
within the cloudy cincture where they play,
as something lost--the dream that wouldn't stay.
I'm here alone with stoic Jove at dawn,
the monarch of detritus flung apace,
immense in that hard solitude unsought,
no further much elated by the spawn
our universe expels and can't erase.