The star servant (tribute to Stephen Hawking)

“Can God make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it”

Stephen Hawking

 

 

(I) The Boy

 

I picture you in winter

the violet flower of your breath shrivelling upon the window,

you notice rain bejewelled on a spider’s web and see stars on an abacus.

I picture your mathematical eyes like a sheepdog herding in the planets,

your Mother shouts it is time for bed, there were no monsters for you.

 

(II) The Adolescent

 

I picture you in bloom,

the crush girl smiles at everyone and today she lingered longer at you.

There is an aeroplane writing gold between the leaky moon and sun,

you want to pour out it’s nectar into two flutes and drink it with her.

You walk towards her and a foppish boy mocks your walk, she walks away.

 

(III) Oxford

 

I picture you alone with stars,

It is daytime and nobody notices the sundial of stars but you feel them,

you mine space and diamond worlds wrapped themselves around you.

This is a marriage that lasts, so throw rice into the sky and kiss the bride.

A speck of rain splashes on your spectacles, the world is now magnified.

 

(IV) Sexual encounter

 

I will not picture you with a woman,

she is an unfathomable universe made up of water and immaculate life.

There is a red sailor in her womb, she is rowing to life with you her coxswain.

I picture you both joyous holding your babe aloft like a trophy for Jupiter.

 

(V) The Chair

 

I do not hear the automaton,

your mandible is chewing up all we thought of sky and her beautiful sisters.

I see people forced to listen without interrupting you as you take them to space,

this is how we find our way back to earth by listening to the whole point made.

If we never find the meaning of the universe we find a man who took us closer,

By mind,

by chin,

by automated sincerity.