Sestina

A billion billion stars or so

are dancing on the Milky Way

and grand they are but I must go,

because that’s not enough for me;

I want to find the brimming well

and burning centre of the show.

You seek the source of all the show?

Too far away it is and so

you shall be dead, my friend, and well

before you’ve travelled half the way.

So swallow truth and be like me:

let angels dance and let them go.

I’d like to know where angels go

or where they come from. Tell me, show;

it’s information new to me.

Perhaps some old book told you so

or did you learn another way

and are you sure you learned it well?

A thousand angels dance as well

as horses on a merry-go

upon a pin. That is the way

that I was taught. You cannot show

this wrong or even partly so;

it has been good enough for me.

But that seems craziness to me

and any of my friends as well.

Are you the sort of so-and-so

who knows he’s wrong but won’t let go

because he’s commandeered the show

and will not stop once underway.

All right! I shall not lie, no way!

A god confided this in me:

the boss who really ran the show

has blown it up, himself as well;

ineptly let a Big Bang go

ten billion years ago, or so.

God blew away his world as well.

For you and me there's time to go

so we’re the centres of the show.