I
Each day, without fail,
The Star Dwellers stared down,
Watching us with idle curiosity.

Until one day,
As an experiment,
They dropped silver
Into all our lakes,
Our rivers and seas.

From then on,
The desolated earth was known
Only as the Silver Planet,
And the Star Dwellers
Looked elsewhere to play.

II
Careless in their youth,
Indeed destructively so,
The Star Dwellers
Returned to earth
In their later light years.

From a distance,
They removed the silver
And scattered seeds,
Gathered from many galaxies,
Onto the earth.

But nothing grew.

Only on the largest island did
A thin sapling begin to emerge.

Quietly, with its prowling roots
And soaring branches,
It took over
The whole island.

III
The Children,
Coming to life again
After their long dormancy in the silver water,
Made daily forays
To the First Sound Tree.

Some, lying under its branches,
Recorded diligently
Each utterance of the Tree,
Until finally learning how to make
Their own melodies.

Others, perching on the highest boughs,
Swayed to the Tree’s songs,
Sleeping in its silences,
And idly making oars
Out of its fallen branches.

One year,
A trio of children left the island
On the Boat of Songs,
Whose oars gave out lullabies
When rowed.

IV
Traveling around the desolate world,
On the Boat of Songs,
The Children sang—
Sang the world into being again.

During this Century of Singing,
Hordes of animals, fish, and birds emerged—

As, for example, when the children sang
The Song of the Caterpillar,
The Song of the Snow Leopard,
The Song of the Peacock,
And the Song of the Turtle.

And on the earth,
The Songs called up
Sweet fruits,
Fragrant flowers,
Sturdy vegetables.

V
When the world had been sung into being,
The Children knew it was time to leave.

And so, cutting the First Sound Tree down,
They carved a space ship
From its trunk, boughs, and roots.

Singing to one another,
The Children clambered in,
Clasping baskets of fruit, flowers, and vegetables,
Followed by animals, fish, and birds.

Together they sang
The Song of Departure,
And then took off,
Silently,
Huddled in the belly of the Great Sound Ship.

Traveling
At the speed of light and faster,
They finally arrived,
Breathless,
In the domain of
The luminous Star Dwellers.

And there,
The Children
And their companions emerged,
Jubilant,
To sing their final song,
Whose notes reverberate
Until the end of time.

VI
No one was sure what inspired them—

To guide them through eternity?

To amuse themselves until the end of time?—

But all knew that the Star Dwellers made maps of their travels
Using skeins of cosmic light,
Twisting lines of time and space,
Recording distant galaxies’ sounds and silences.

In the Library of Maps,
The librarians struggled with the impossible task
Of how to house all this.

Finally they decided
To create
In a small room
An infinite soundless world
Of mirrors.

Here the Star Dwellers sit, mesmerized,
Remembering.

VII
Knowing it would be impossible
To create a single map of such a vast history,
The Chief Librarian asked the Children,
Diffidently,
For suggestions.

From an empty dark room in the Library,
A mirrored window now faces
A faraway part of the Garden,
Illuminated with light from distant suns.

There a solitary tree stands,
Growing only an inch or so a century.
Each winter solstice,
It emits a single sound
That echoes the rest of the year round.

On the red rose-petaled stones
Beneath the Second Sound Tree,
A white snow leopard gambols,
Regularly,
Every afternoon
In the winter sunlight.

And each year in the summer months,
The Squawk Bird visits the Tree,
Singing and making her nest,
Complete with blue eggs
And a silver music box.

by Moira Roth
Written 12/21/01-02/07/02