Vast ripples flow across the cosmic lights,
and in their wake, the newest stars shine bright,
the scientists unsure whence they were formed,
when spotted by the distant satellites.

In laboratories filled with well-informed
astronomers, the science minds brainstorm,
content at first to watch it from afar,
astonished when the source is a lifeform.

A whale shark larger than a full hectare,
its spotted skin resembling the stars,
a-swimming, leaving new ones in its wake,
a Pleiades-like map of Zanzibar.

They marvel at the beauty that it makes,
though logic makes them do a doubletake.
This should not be. It makes no sense, this light.
The stately stars they see are no mistake.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of these interlocking rubāʿīyāt was made possible by a gift from Johnny Liu during our annual Kickstarter.]