Metaphor

It is said there are more trees on earth

than there are stars in the milky way

sunrays sit locked in the cypresses for millennia

waiting for the badlands to be reignited from dust

the last of the sunlight departs, the day is shut

the sight of countless stars overhead once was profound

eyes of the languid eons, like meadows of blue lupine

gazing up at them I used to be overcome

by the nausea of careening along the arm of a galaxy

gripping the cool grass, mind slipping off into the vacuum

now I am older, I find stars do not overwhelm

but the phantasm of my youth, it is different

stepping into the dour, lightless graveyard of space

as the trunks of trees grow like father's switchblade

coronas melting like a febrile wax, ending the night

as dawn arrives a swollen sun bleeds honeyed syrup

and I wonder; do stars suffer from amnesia?

remembering every night, what it's like to be lightyears

far from each other, before detonating irreconcilably

inside the invisible tomb of the cold, indifferent void

and the trees they grow to such fortuitous strength

imperceptibly on a marvelous feast of starlight

as we wait for our own ghostly visitors someday

making what we can from the prairie of our youth

the burned field, the cursed field, the field of life