A Love Story

The following is a story that I wrote in poem form. It's a simple story. It's a love story.


A Love Story


Once upon a time, there was a little star
Who was small and bright and enamored with
The society that formed her constellation of luminaries.
Under their canopy of protection, she strove to please.
Sometimes it hurt her to try so hard.

One day, an unnatural light fell out of the sky.
The debris grazed her shoulder in its descent,
Collided with another star she’d only heard of,
And she watched as both of them fell from her sight.

This disturbed her for a long time.
She began to wonder if stars were merely hung by string
Or wire from the ceiling of heaven.
Did God ordain all, or did he simply hold the threads,
Pinched between His two fingers?

She reached up to tug on her own supports,
And they gave just a little.
She felt her own predestination slip just a bit;
As her hand reached voluntarily, to test the
Structure of the universe.

Volition.

This too was accounted for, the other stars hurried to assure her--
Free will was also a function of the hard determinism,
Otherwise known as the will of God.
Nonetheless, they saw that she’d tested the materials,
And they secretly shuddered.

***
Once upon another time, another star longed to be a man.
He was tired of constellations and galaxies,
So he cut his string, plummeted, landed safely,
And pitched a tent outside, in November.
That same night, he was pinched between the fingers of God,
And he knew for sure that humans should not try
To be blazing stars.

He looked up into the heavens and saw the twinkling
Children of God--flickering children, frail children,
Pretending, like all children do,
And he loved them, despite their make-believe.

***

A day came, when the man who had once thought
Himself a star,
And the girl who was still trying to be one,
Met each other in the halls of their University.
They liked each other immediately,
But with her head still in the heavens, the girl had
A difficult time understanding the man.
He glowed,
But she knew he was no star. She was puzzled.

The man thought the girl prone to abstractions,
But he recognized in her a younger, starry version of himself.
She was thoughtful, meditative, logical.
She had not yet cut the strings that held her up just above the ground,
But she’d pulled and played at them so much, he could see,
That they were dreadfully frayed.
The fall would not be painful for her;
Even now, the grass almost tickled her feet.

The man knew he loved this girl, as he loved the rest
Of the twinkling children of God,
But he loved her deeper than that too.
He felt his head was truly in the heavens, sometimes,
As it had never been before.

The girl felt herself in the heavens too,
When she walked side by side with the man each day--
A heaven entirely different than the one she fancied
Herself to already occupy.
Gradually, this other heaven became familiar,
And distinctly more celestial than the other.
When she asked him why, bewildered and a little disillusioned,
He spoke to her of Faith.
She thought he was a true Knight of the Faith he spoke of.
As time went one, she couldn’t decide which heaven was real,
But she felt infinitely resigned to the one (whichever one it was)
That was merely a façade.

Alone one day, harassed and downtrodden,
The girl wandered into a secluded garden and began to pray.
She prayed for revelations. She begged God to show her
The true heaven, the true way for her soul to shine.

In that moment, the strings broke,
And for the first time, she felt the cool, summer grass
Beneath her bare feet.

Now, looking at the stars so far above her,
She laughed in delight, thrilled with the humiliation of it,
Marveling at how easy it was, now, to breathe.
She gazed into the man’s deep, thoughtful eyes,
And there was an agreement.

The little constellation from which she came
Burned hot against her. They refused to acknowledge
The man or the Source of their Love.
But the girl had discovered oxygen, and it was
Impossible to go back.

***

She dressed herself in brightest white,
And married the man in a dusty town, witnessed
By a few cherished earth angels they both knew.

And since then, the two of them have--
And for as long as faith and Eternity are Infinite, they will--
Live happily ever after.


The End.