My father was the constant sun of mine
Placed in the center of my universe,
Dictating daily toils, joys, and time,
My seasons, too- though seasons deeper go
Than gravity due to the sun, for as
The mad astronomers have said, it is
The earth that tilts herself from sun
When winter beckons from inside her core.
O father mine, what shall I do, when you
Have fled this mortal world for larger skies?
Shall I continue round your empty seat
In circles through the dark, still following
The wanty you have set in place for me?
Or might I drift clear off the map until
The arrows point to signs that say “O here
Be dragons?” I know not. There once was still
Another orb within my universe,
Though evermore blocked by my sun, as he
Stood opposite my course- Lord Hamlet, I
Can see thee now, in darkness you so caused
By snuffing out the sun without the time
For thought. Your path grows stranger, wilder still-
You zig, you zag about the stars, and so
You leave me dazed and warm, alone and cold
With madd’ning spasms of emotion. How
Could you, once great and apple of mine eyne
Fall so far from the orchard tree? A mind
Inclined to poetry and ‘membrances
Now squeaks, unhinged from its very frame.
The love you doled me still rests in my heart,
For I will not regret the past like you.
Yet mad thou art, for swiping round you go
With daggers for my father and the souls
Surrounding you. Is this the orbit thou
Hast chosen: one of bloody rampage on
The stars? Must all the fortunes bleed and cringe
For ordering your King to die? Oh, Lord.
And now must I spin down this road like you?
I, too, have lost a father wrongly slain.
Yet here I feel no fire in my soul
To shriek and slay and burn the whole world down;
Instead a cold and spreading ice has grown
Inside my bosom. Not the world I wish
To die, but I: I who am blund’ring through
The empty space alone. Perchance, this is,
Lord Hamlet, why I shall retain the spring
Before it freezes o’er my heart and I
Succumb to icy depths of fluid space.
I will not add to suff’rings of the land,
But will instead place flowers in each hand.