Gaze into the endless breadth of the stars. Drink of the bottomless abyss they hide behind their celestial light. Contemplate the beauty of their design, the cruelty of their uncaring nature. Worship the implications of their existence, the teasing veil of their elusive secrets. What savor it is to know such beauty. What warmth to feel so infinitesimal.
It is enough to drive a man insane.
How absurd, then, to realize, in a moment unbeckoned and a realization untoward, that all this beauty, the infinitely divine and the divinely infinite, pales in comparison to eyes that hold these constellations.
Eyes that see and contemplate. Eyes that understand and discern. Eyes that art unpredictably alluring, and alluringly unpredictable.
The light of the stars is but a promise, their warmth a flimsy covenant. But the eyes that behold them just so, the worlds upon worlds of potential that are therein birthed and smothered in a fraction of the eternity of a second, the light that reflects off the sclera of a soul wondering, standing and beholding despite the torment of mortal dilemma weighing it down, the childlike innocence of a being, marveling…
I find myself delirious and exhausted, my fervor foolishly spent on the altar of an inane ambition; trying, vainly and in vain, to capture in words a beauty that takes away the very breath of your speech, and confounds the faculties of your cognition.
To behold. To behold is grander a gift than anyone could hope to contemplate in this lifetime. To behold is the axle on which the whole of creation turns. To behold, and have eyes to see, and those eyes to contemplate that which they see — there is no point greater and no purpose more fulfilling.
And there, to behold eyes that behold constellations. To be so selfless as to be rid of self, and see, and wonder, and ponder, and deliberate, and envisage, and bandy around, and regard, and mull and meditate, and think, and reflect, know and feel, feel and understand, understand and love, love and cherish, cherish and worship, worship and die. All, all, all, in the pools of eyes that hold in them the constellations.
The very consciousness of a soul, another soul, any soul, every soul, that walks this earth, and drinks of its sap, and is brought to awe by the rambling words of a wandering poet — eccentric in his bearings and incongruous in speech, a wayfarer of the ancient world, a herald of forgotten words and forsaken ideals —and fathoms, ever so briefly in nature of moments that have all we want but do not linger, the humbling wonder put there for their eyes to see.
I find, much to my dismay, that every breath I take comes at the forbearance of eyes that are not even mine. Eyes that give me a reason to live. To love. To glimpse the wonder come alive in those unsuspecting irises. To glimpse the light of the universe reflected off the dilated pupils of one who begins to see for the first time in their life.
And I shall read onto them the very unspoken words,
that elude the unordained eye.
With a gaze unwedded by diversion
And a heart reared for love.
