Light Years

Is light the last thing lost or never lost at all?

There is light so far away, it's gone

by the time we see it,

the tail lights on the highway far ahead

that say someone is traveling

this same dark way.

Those blue clumps lost ten billion light-

years ago at the edge of the universe

redshift from ultraviolet to the visible

and are found by the Hubble telescope,

sleek horse pulling through dark

the reeling carriages of space

even as they change into roses

or thunderheads or phantom animals

we never imagined.

What fiery dust was our beginning,

left us a tender earth? Far out in the universe

a tomorrow we can't see is singing the last word

of a song we heard long ago under stars

like blossoms on black water.