Caroline Herschel Confronts the Universe

Galilea

Are there too many stars, you angry sky,
that you should grant me stewardship? Suppose
I do not care to interrupt our world,
give birth with Mary to a larger life
that, cuckoo-like, will hurl me from the nest.
Discovery? You think I long to find
that we are sacrificed to a greater good?
If curiosity's rewarded by
endangerment, let me inquire no more,

and ignorant of things beyond my door

I'll never ask another question.

What if the end is lost? This house’s
bright magnificence replaced?
This garden’s ordered luxury
uprooted? Every plant and tree
disorganized, the roses scuffed,
alignments skewed? What once was soft,
maternal will be critical,
obtuse, unloving, blank, and all
my husbandry dismembered. To
accommodate uncertainty
involves a death, as birds make room
for cuckoo babies in the womby
nest, their mother full believing
all will make it out alive.
Finding a brother in the bed
Pushes the weaker out. Such bad
developments are not undone
by wanting. What is here is gone.

Hold close your objects of desire,
Elsewise they will be blown as air
inflates the thunderclouds to chase
the rain across the heavens. Choose
to grasp what doesn’t change most dear
against your heart, for there’s a door
into a secret garden full
of unimagined flowers. Feel
and smell them, think them in their beds,
design their courts, their ranks, their buds
and blooms in proud display, but keep
them in your head, lest they escape
to overwhelm your ordered rows.
Danger uncovers what your eyes
have overlooked; the fearless search
intoxicates, the finding, such
unusual air, now making way’s
the way, all changes, otherwise
what stays the same will stay the same
beyond its time, and time will seem
distasteful of its charge.

      The air

is still, the night has turned its ear
to listen; lawn and leaf await
the wet and weighted morning. What
relief is working upwards through
its rocky, grassy vigil? Hear;               
the earth is groaning, waiting her
release, like childbirth, agonized
but numbed to pain’s convulsing noisy
grinding spasms. What’s your word?
That everything decays towards
a better future? Dawn renews
my brighter death. How do I know
what is surrendered to the night
will be returned unharmed, and not
released, erased, struck, voided. Hear 
me, you too-patient trumpets. Here
you give your life to sleep in trust
that seeds will waken into trees,
that trees will sacrifice their fruit
for seed to carry on. But frost
may interpose, and circumstance
will freeze the cycle into stones
that disallow your vital breath.
What if another plant is bred
that saps the necessary room;
will you resist? Will you uproot
your enemy and save the wealth
of space for keeping? Heaven is wide;
wider than I am made of. Fear
confronts me that I need room for
expanding, but my time is small
and ordered, and my heart wants still.

Such space, such silence. As black caves
of swimmers shimmer when there comes
a guiding candle, or the gloom
of unexperienced time is gleamed
through with light when first espied
with naive hope. What secrecy
is here? What hidden horrors lurk
beyond the scope of where I look,
to smash the maps and tear apart
what’s good, what’s beautiful. 

                                                 My part
is done, I wash my hands of all
its consequences, holy hell
bear witness, here is far enough.
There are no more unknowns, my nerve
will not allow it. Venture on
you foolish souls to fly alone.

So beautiful the sky,
so infinite its reach.
To float, to fly beyond
my earthbound static pull
would free the senses, drain
the mind of gravity,
release all fear, propel
me floating onward, up,
insensate, benumbed bliss.
O carry me along
incorporate, divine,
in freedom, parallel
to all the chains of earth
and let me scour the stars
that oversee our time.  

Come heaviness,
your living mass
must animate
itself. Be mute,
all voices shrieking
shrillness. Strike
out, dumb fear, through
these limbs that they
might swing afresh
and in the rush
regenerate
new life, whose righteousness
will work
a flame to wake
enlightenment.
Come, fill my mind
with stars. My heart
expands with the heat
of birthing joy.
Rejoice! Would you
believe in gods
more solid, goods
more tactile? Now
is all I know
and need. Let fear
unlock what faith
requires. I’ll swim
the sea, and some
will swim behind
that also heed
the heavenly call.
Who dares to follow
follow where
the bright stars are.
If dangerous
the path, what is
another way?
To wonder why
the unbounded void
has dared invade
my dance, extended
its graceful hand
into this life
just so to leave
a challenge. I
pluck up the day
that I am healed
by cherishing, hold
this fragrance close
in my embrace.
There are two paths
and both are possible
but one
of them leads on,
the other fails,
although it feels
the same. Do not
be fooled, the night
is filled with stars
and streams and stairs
that lead you on
or take you in.
Tonight's my time
my chance to turn,
to good what yet
has languished.
You, challenger,
slow voyager
across the sky,
discovery’s
a doorway down
into the dawn
that fades beyond
and comes to an end
in rapturous
white light. Release
me, earth, for flight
and in the flooding
new and good
I’ll turn to gold.