Gravity and Light
O great Sun
you taught me this:
The centre of gravity
is the centre of light;
the impulse to fly
is fused to the fixed;
for the volatile radiance
that bathes the vast cosmos
unfurls from the depths
of centripetal power.
This is the alchemical wedding
the golden ring
that binds every lover
to the beloved.
Chase not. No.
Chase not your voluptuous Venus
nor indomitable Mars,
for you are the axis
the binding gravity
upon which their great dances pivot.
Abandon this fulcrum
and stars will fall;
neglect this nucleus,
and orbits unravel;
the cosmic architecture collapses
without the Sun.
(And then all we can do
is drift untethered
in infinite coldness
reaching for receding love).
But from this centre
this styptic, coagulating heart
you must give.
Spill forth your light like a great molten sunset
pour oceans of fire across the farthest of worlds;
be ceaseless in your overflow
your sacred, rupturing abundance;
love without cease until your last dying breath
But always keep your centre—your heart.
For you give only by your radiance,
not by ripping
your pulsating organ
from its cosmic body
to proffer it on a silver platter
to some wandering lover;
for the love that hands forth its heart
severs its source of power
cuts its cosmic radiance
and as a consequence
demands the universe in return.
No, the sun only gives from its gravity.
Baptised eternal
in the luminous blood
the lust of all lustre
its magnanimous expanse
drinks from the roots
of invisible power;
roots
that secretly sustain
every heavenly body
and which silently ripple
with effortless rapture
through all fathomless time.
No, the sun only gives from its gravity
and never looks for gain.
Aaron Cheak
Image: Tarkovsky, Solaris (1972)