Poetry The Library in the Sky

I wrote this poem while some friends and I were trekking through the Australian desert with a train of camels, and sleeping under the stars at night... it's not literary, but here it is anyway

The Library in the Sky

As I lay in my swag last night
When I’d normally read a book
I glimpsed a spangled canopy
And had a longer look

The night was quiet, the stars were bright
Patterns began forming
A kinetoscope of images
That played right through ‘til morning

Warriors and Gods parade
Across the arc celestial
A catalogue of animals
The magic and the mythical

A manual of geometry
A mathematics text
A treatise on astronomy
Revolving east to west

I read the vast, bright heavens
And for once I could not sleep
Decoding constellations
And wishing they could speak

And in the reaches of the night
A thought grew in my head
Imagine if those points of light
Weren’t stars, but books, instead?

Not like a normal library
Constrained to row on row
But free to wheel about the sky
Until dawn’s early glow

Some might be weighty tomes indeed
Some fanciful and slender
Some morbid volumes, barely read
Some feisty and some tender

The earliest Phoenicians
When they turned their gaze on high
Learned the art of navigation
From that library in the sky

Pliny ran his hand along the spines
Galileo flipped the pages
But the library of the sky exists
For more than just the sages

Some choose a star, just like a map
To help them find their way
Or simply for some company
Or to recall friends who’ve gone away

Burke and even Wills just might
Have found a soothing tome
To help them through that final night
Until sunrise took them home

A force uncertain wrote these books
The laws of physics bound them
But left us free to read them through
Then leave them where we found them

As I gaze upon this wonder
I cannot help but ponder
Be they Pisces or Aquarian
Who is the Grand Librarian?

Is He a cosmic craftsman,
Or just a stellar draftsman?
And entertain the possibility
That the noted “He” is actually a “She”

To the keeper of the firmament
That detail’s insignificant
There are greater questions to debate
And greater truths to contemplate

Nobody makes us read these books
No tariff’s brought to bear
We’re simply beckoned to admire
The volumes circling there

The End​

 

[dave.crowther]

And in the reaches of the night
A thought grew in my head
Imagine if those points of light
Weren’t stars, but books, instead?

My favorite part- a twist I would not have seen coming, had I not known the title of the poem. I love the idea!

 

[Julie]

Geraldine, that's a poem that wants to be reread! I love the shift at the end. Very cleverly and beautifully crafted.

 

[Emily]

I love this, the "journey" through your nocturnal musings

 

[Nikky Lee]

Wonderful! I love it!

 

[Victoria Bastedo]

I wrote this poem while some friends and I were trekking through the Australian desert with a train of camels, and sleeping under the stars at night... it's not literary, but here it is anyway

View attachment 7561View attachment 7562

The Library in the Sky

As I lay in my swag last night
When I’d normally read a book
I glimpsed a spangled canopy
And had a longer look

The night was quiet, the stars were bright
Patterns began forming
A kinetoscope of images
That played right through ‘til morning

Warriors and Gods parade
Across the arc celestial
A catalogue of animals
The magic and the mythical

A manual of geometry
A mathematics text
A treatise on astronomy
Revolving east to west

I read the vast, bright heavens
And for once I could not sleep
Decoding constellations
And wishing they could speak

And in the reaches of the night
A thought grew in my head
Imagine if those points of light
Weren’t stars, but books, instead?

Not like a normal library
Constrained to row on row
But free to wheel about the sky
Until dawn’s early glow

Some might be weighty tomes indeed
Some fanciful and slender
Some morbid volumes, barely read
Some feisty and some tender

The earliest Phoenicians
When they turned their gaze on high
Learned the art of navigation
From that library in the sky

Pliny ran his hand along the spines
Galileo flipped the pages
But the library of the sky exists
For more than just the sages

Some choose a star, just like a map
To help them find their way
Or simply for some company
Or to recall friends who’ve gone away

Burke and even Wills just might
Have found a soothing tome
To help them through that final night
Until sunrise took them home

A force uncertain wrote these books
The laws of physics bound them
But left us free to read them through
Then leave them where we found them

As I gaze upon this wonder
I cannot help but ponder
Be they Pisces or Aquarian
Who is the Grand Librarian?

Is He a cosmic craftsman,
Or just a stellar draftsman?
And entertain the possibility
That the noted “He” is actually a “She”

To the keeper of the firmament
That detail’s insignificant
There are greater questions to debate
And greater truths to contemplate

Nobody makes us read these books
No tariff’s brought to bear
We’re simply beckoned to admire
The volumes circling there

The End​

Somehow the last paragraph reminds me of this poem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, found in the Child's Garden of Verses:

To Any Reader

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

 

[gbhunt]

Somehow the last paragraph reminds me of this poem, by Robert Louis Stevenson, found in the Child's Garden of Verses:

To Any Reader

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

Yes, i can see why it reminded you!

 

[Lana Hun]

Lovely! Not literary? Mmm...