Star Dust

We sat in the kitchen in early February

with the door open to an unusually warm day and

 welcomed the outdoor noises in.

You replaced switch plates and I read in the paper.

We talked about your daughter and about our family.

We talked about the newly laid tiles.

And then I came across a letter

 in the Parade magazine that asked

If many stars are so far away from earth

 that their light takes millions of years to reach us,

how do we know they  exist?

Marilyn responded,

We don’t.

When we look at the stars

 we are viewing the past.

This struck me

and I felt melodic and chromatic.

Like we, you and I, were floating in a soap bubble,

spinning through space and time.

That this moment we were having in the kitchen

 had been played out before

 and would be played out again.

I felt the utter beauty and

substance to this moment that I

rarely pay attention to

and I said to you,

Well what if all of this is

 really in the past and

you and I don’t even exist anymore,

and this moment right now is not real?

And you said somewhere in this vast universe

we are in the past.

That by the time that part of the universe

saw or heard this conversation

we would be gone.

And I said that as fast

As the speed of light is,

 it is still too slow.

But what I really meant to say

was that all of this

is spinning too quickly.

Please let me hold this

moment against my breast. 

Let me wrap my arms around it and

let me press my lips to its ear

And whisper.

Stay.