But I Will Shine, Said the Sun

by Yaacov David Shulman

But I will shine, said the sun,
Because I am the sun.

Worried constellations of mother stars huddled
And rocked thin nebula in their cosmic arms.

Somewhere a nova burst forth,
A star that had tried to be a planet for ten million years,
Looking at all the other stars doing their jobs dutifully,
Blazing down on planets of boiling rock and ash.

On one planet a microscopic cell was born, an amoeba, stretching its cilia tentatively forth in the lap of salt water,
It basked in the rays of a star it called the sun.

The song of the spheres rocked the sun in his cradle
And a shiver of atomic warmth trembled through him,
And the planets bobbed in the sea.