On Waking Up

[Sleeping sister of a farther sky]

Sleeping sister of a farther sky,

dropped from zenith like a tender tone,

the lucid apex of a scale unknown

whose whitest whisper is an opaque cry

of measureless frequency, the spectral sigh

you breath, bright hydrogen and brighter zone

of fissured carbon, consummated moan

and ceaseless rapture of a brilliant why.

Will nothing wake you from your livid rest?

Essence of ether and astral stone

the stunned polarities your substance weaves

in one bright making, like a dream of leaves

in the tree’s mind, summered. Or as a brooding bone

roots constellations in the body’s nest.