Star Travelers

We are all star travelers,
brief-lived, unknowing,
come hurtling through brute time
and boundless span,
riding an obscure star
which has before worlds began 
coursed the reaches of 100
billion stars in all, sailing the 
far frontiers of a galaxy 
woven from the trance 
of giant sun-wheels spinning
in fearsome, celestial dance.

Our guide and consolation
is a transient grace, insisting 
that all exists for Now, 
for this momentary bliss, 
for those whom we adore 
and perhaps a backwards kiss, 
a transitory passing 
like the slanting light at dusk 
and on and on, 
times without number more
this simple star must
revolve before star-spinning 
spirals off to less than dust.