Stardust, Collected

A poem for all times, not just today.
​By Zach Hively

Nov 7
I’d be lying if I said I was happy with the state of the world right now. I might truck in hyperbole, but never (I hope) in untruths.

It’s not as if my team just lost the Super Bowl. It’s that I don’t trust that we’re all playing by the same rules. And that gets dangerous when the rules are such things as Are people people?

Today is a day for a poem. All days are, really. But this is a day for this poem. The anger churning me as I write should actually be part of my every day; maybe it will be, now. Maybe this anger will grant me the clarity I need to work for what I think matters in this world.

Stardust, Collected
 
I’m one of
the lucky ones.
I have too much
going my way
to ever despair
 
completely.
For there are always
dogs in the world,
and sunsets, and
good people
 
when you bother
to look for them.
But they don’t
not a one of them
stop the anger
 
from raging
—nor should they.
For there are those
who think themselves
to be the only
 
people
who are people
while the rest of us,
those I love
who might be
more obviously
 
otherable
than I am, are things
to be ignored
until useful.
Joke’s on those fools--
 
we are not going anywhere
—not a one of us.
Just as even
when a star
ends its life
 
the atoms
don’t die,
so too will we
persist
in raging
 
and loving and
delighting
in dogs and sunsets
and each other,
even when
 
we seem
tattered and
torn--
maybe especially
then.