Bright Lights

from what we cannot hold the stars are made
—W.S. Merwin, Youth—

The stars are wilted and wan
and the Milky Way nostalgia,
unable to compete
with city razzle-dazzle.

I wonder
where radiance hides.
Is it still pulsing away
at the rim of our whirling blue world,
at the edge of sanity,
perhaps afraid to
signal us
that the gods cannot get through,
that we’re alone,
all alone
in our fine and brutal incandescence?