Why weeps the Great Horned Owl?
	
Because there is no heaven,
Because the darkness holds only
twelve stars . . . 

I
The explosion was pronounced
a great success. Dust clouds and fire, broken
parts and the desire
to live among the stars gone
in seconds and defined
as a rapid unscheduled disassembly

while the owl turned back
into his mousy dreams of night
that tastes of shadows, where
the moon is balanced
on a branch’s tip and darkness

puts down roots in this,
his corner of creation
on the thirteenth star.

II
A cherry blossom petal drifts across
the loneliness that Pluto is,
cold and scarred by time propelled
with the force of wind
that knows neither up nor down nor any
way to escape. The owl

won’t give up summer’s country. Here
he waits for night to settle in, pulling
its dozen stars behind it until
the moment midnight’s claw
cuts darkness open.

III
So much unfinished creation. It is
as if the name of Mars sufficed.

But no more than ruins
where nothing ever
had been built
only

sadness granted form, an uninhabitable dream
waiting for sleep. A fortune’s worth
of barrenness. Mouse tracks

and not even
a branch to look down from.

IV
As if
leaving everything behind
could satisfy the hunger to know
what grows in heaven
the route was set, the fuel tanks filled,
and the countdown began. Then the waiting

lasted centuries. Seconds turned
into fireflies, minutes
rang against rocks in mountain streams
and the hours silhouetted
against the moon were howling.
Twenty-one . . . twenty . . . nineteen
. . . no one listened 

to the owl. Eighteen . . . seventeen . . . 
Stop while heaven is still
beautiful as only
the unknown, unexplored can be.