I
Beginnings
The stars had begun to fall,
When the universe
Was still young,

While galaxies were forming,
And others
Dying.

And in this restless firmament
Came raining down
The first of the falling stars.

II
From the Window
Billions of years later,
One in particular
Caught her fancy
When she first saw it,
Late at night,
From the Library’s window.

Mystically inclined,
She began to feel
— although rebuking herself for such cosmic presumptuousness—
That it was her eyes
That kept this particular star alive.

III
Her Book
And so,
Over the years,
She gathered her nightly drawings and poetic ramblings,
In which she traced
The flight of her Falling Star.

The book,
Of which there is only a single copy,
Has been passed from hand to hand,
And studied
— although only dimly understood—
By astronomers
In this and other worlds.

IV
His Maps
On his part
As a gesture of love—
Tenderly amused,
But fascinated too,
By her poetic cartography—
The Astronomer
And his colleagues in the Old Observatory
Meticulously photographed her falling star,
Mapping its nightly flight.

V
Their Mirrors
Each had a mirror,
Reflecting the face of the other,
Through which,
Over many years
They shared their daily lives and thoughts.

One night,
The Falling Star appeared to have vanished.

In the Old Observatory,
The Astronomer searched,
Anxiously,
In the dark sky.

At dawn,
In desperation,
He held up his mirror,

Only to see her
Gesturing reassuringly,

As the star
Fell slowly
Behind her.

VI
The World of Falling Stars
In her old age
She became drawn to all falling stars,
Creating a vast cosmic map
Of fragments of images and words,
Which she called
The World of Falling Stars.

In the Old Observatory,
They used this map
To guide them in their studies,
Publishing the proceedings in scholarly journals,
Which were then housed
In the Library of Maps.

by Moira Roth
Written 7/09/02, revised 4/07/03