Our ancestors watched it blossom
through ancient eyes
and made offerings to its spirit:
sweet cakes and honey and wine
left at the base of the telescope,
lives left at the altar of knowledge.
Now we circle its flame,
moths in metal,
seduced by the memory of its birth.
We waited in the light
of our thousand-flower sun
as the petals—our children,
our warriors—fell from the bloom
to their deaths. They broke
a pitiless enemy, were broken
in turn, and in the stillness
after battle we watched
their husks, stained
and darkened by flame, orbit
our compass star. We wept rain—
rain, forgotten between stars—
and we grieved like the shadow
that gives birth to worlds.
This is the story we will tell
their children's children
as we ride the night:
your fathers and mothers,
the thousand flowers,
fought with all the strength
of poetry, and the sun devoured them,
and they became the light.