The Artwork: The Sun
The Poem: The Sun, Part 1 & 2
PART 1: Longing
The sun itself is impermanent
and 10 billion years is still not enough
for me to know love
without seeing.
I am haunted by its ghost
a phantom that fills me
with a voracious appetite
for affection,
blindly leading me
to finite sources
of dissatisfaction.
White-sugar applause
cinnamon-toast-crunch caresses
I could eat a belly full
and still want more.
PART 2: Heliophysics
My longing is a collapsing nebula
flattened under its own weight.
Will I
become the yawning darkness
of interstellar space, another dead star
vacuuming up debris?
Or,
Will I
become a new helios?
An all-seeing witness
riding through the sky
watching my heat flow
from calm to chaos,
my flickering heart
unconditionally declaring
I am fire herself,
glowing in the dark?