Beyond

For my grand­father, Sydney Levine

You were ready to go.
Unafraid you said,
Every­one has a time.

I told you wild stories
About a girl in a labyrinth­ine tower,
A tower filled with books, scrolls, manuscripts,
And in this lib­rary, schol­ars bend over pages,
Trans­lat­ing, dis­cuss­ing, arguing. The girl
Gets dis­trac­ted by these intrigues,
The hidden mean­ings between pages,
Spends hours talk­ing with acolytes
When she should be seek­ing the way out.

At the top of the tower,
She encoun­ters Azaquiel,
Mystic, astro­nomer, magician:
Arcane arcs and sym­bols describing
Plan­et­ary mech­an­ics and chym­ical mysteries.
The girl stares, dumbstruck.
She asks a thou­sand questions.
And finally, Aza­quiel turns and gently
Tells her she will never know the stars
Through him; she must go there herself.

She bows her head, silent,
Turns to the dusty corner
Of the math­em­atician’s attic
Finds a faded carpet inscribed with sigils
Climbs onto it and sails out
Of the open window of the tower
Into the vast night, into the dark silent nothing
Of the night sky, light points sharp
Against deep­est azure
And finds peace at last.

You were a man of conviction
For you, the song is over
For you, the book is shut
Noth­ing beyond, it just stops, you say.

I prefer to think of you
Scattered to the stars
Watch­ing over me light as leaves
Under my feet blunt as wormsight.