Look up, draw water
from the deep sky-well
slowly, learning
the ways of shadow. Then,
after centuries of this,
begin to become the stars,
more quietly than their
echoing light,
as they burn towards
their death—Become their
mind, through their great age
of waiting, always waiting
to become something
else, to be, at last
you becoming them.
Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. His poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Scissors and Spackle, Ink Sac, Cerasus Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize in 2022. He is the author of, God Said Fire, and the forthcoming, Snowfire and Home.