25

A Star Is Always Born

Edward Curtin

It is no different now.
The yearning still gnaws.
The night dark, utterly silent,
Sky stretched endlessly back
Into an infinity beyond reach.
And the fears, the tears
Are they any different?
It is no different now.
Joy sometimes, hope too, divisions
Seemingly unbridgeable, vast chasms
Opening between those closest.
Little changes, though two thousand years
Dissolve into oblivion behind us.
It is no different now.
Plus ça change,
Plus c’est la même chose.
Always the same.

Yet a word is heard dimly
Laboring out of the deafening black
Silence, almost but not inaudible.
And the angel says, “Go out,”
And the angel said, “Go out,”
Always the angel, always the voice
Bearing us up along the way
(If you do not turn to the inner light,
Where will you turn?), always calling:
“Journey far through strange country,
Follow the light you barely see
But which is the light of your life.
Follow it across the desert of your heart
Where wild beasts seek to devour you.
There is no time, there is no time
To hesitate. Now is the star’s hour,
Now you are called on a fool’s journey
Into a pig’s pen and a child’s strange
And glorious presence.” Thus speaks the angel
Again and again, no matter how dark
The darkest day, nothing changes.
It is no different now.
Now as always is the star’s hour.
Now as then a star is born to men
To lead us on. A light that darkness
Cannot overcome, despite us.

Love is not a sometimes thing,
Though we abuse it like the earth.
It is all we have to hold us up,
And it always will.

A star is always born.

SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

25 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Maria
Maria
Jan 9, 2022 9:49 AM

This is a beautiful poem that resonates on a deep level….wordy analysis and criticism don’t do it justice…just let it resound and resonate inside you…it wil lgrow in to something magnificent.

Monobazeus
Monobazeus
Dec 27, 2019 12:18 AM

Get yourself a copy of stellarium and go find pn youtube…conception comet….revelation 12 sign stellarium…

Take a look at the fact someone several thousand years ago was able to forecast planetary and star positions for this very day, find yourself totally stumped

Gall
Gall
Dec 25, 2019 10:48 PM

Merry Xmas and may you have many more!

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 4:06 PM

Professor Emeritus Sigmund Freud likened artists to be ‘incipient introverts pining after the love of women’, and he did not hold out much hope for them, Ed.

He was a cantankerous curmudgeon but spot on IMHO.

MOU

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 25, 2019 7:37 PM

Freud was never Professor Emeritus, an honorary title for retired academics.
All curmudgeons are cantankerous, ergo, “cantankerous curmudgeon” is a superfluity.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 7:41 PM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

Freud was an academic according to scholarship. Out of sincere respect I always refer to him as Professor Emeritus Sigmund Freud. I spent years studying his historiography.

MOU

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 25, 2019 7:45 PM

Are your academic shoulders so broad you’re able to confer honorary titles on the dead?

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 7:54 PM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

Yes they are, Jack.

MOU

Jay
Jay
Dec 26, 2019 2:44 AM

At this time of year silence is Golden.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 26, 2019 3:57 AM
Reply to  Jay

At this time of year a big 1000g gram chunk of hashish is golden too but you don’t see me posting on OFF-G for a big block of hash do you, Jay.

MOU

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 28, 2019 12:14 AM

Neglected children often throw tantrums to get attention. Do we blame the parents or the child?

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 28, 2019 12:34 AM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

As a Social Scientist I, for one, am educated in terms of Developmental Psychology in the Experimental Psychology domain. You, on the other hand, have amply demonstrated to all that you have no formal education in the Social Science domain whatsoever. One of the first things all undergraduates in the Social Sciences learn in the first year is to never use words like “Do we blame the parents or the child?”

All first year undergrads are taught the concept of Victim Blaming in the first term.

MOU

48land
48land
Dec 28, 2019 12:02 AM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

lol ..astute reply

48land
48land
Dec 28, 2019 12:07 AM
Reply to  48land

jack garbo’s first reply that is

Stomper of fuctards
Stomper of fuctards
Dec 27, 2019 5:03 AM

Sounds like a simple case of jealousy, on you part definitely and perhaps also on thencase of Frued’s.

SoF.

pàul_m
pàul_m
Dec 25, 2019 2:31 PM

E.C.thanks for your contributions throught the year.all the very best to you and yours this Christmas.

Brian Steere
Brian Steere
Dec 25, 2019 2:25 PM

Into the dark an old year falls
where shade gives way to light
that comes again and ever shall
while earth its circle flies.

A tapestry of dark and light
that seems to ever come and go
within which do we love and hate
as each life cycle’s so.

A world of struggle unto which
we clasp our wish and grasp our day
then falling out of sighted reach
to place forgot, a timeless way.

Yet oft in moments comes unbidden
Deeper knowing stirred
(And) Joy calls forth the heart that’s hidden
‘Awaken of this world’!

For though the turning years that waste
and wasted lie behind,
Is yet thy Father’s Love for thee
Whole, complete, Divine.

What then of time wouldst thou possess
if here now rooted being?
No more the driven loneliness
in dark and light unseeing.

Into the dark an old thought falls
as shade dissolves to Light
that comes again and ever shall
while earth your circle flies.

brian in a moment

George Cornell
George Cornell
Dec 25, 2019 10:01 AM

And a very happy Christmas to you Edward.

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 25, 2019 2:05 AM

It doesn’t rhyme. But neither did Paradise Lost…

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 4:21 PM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

My mother was a Poet/Writer/Producer, and the adept poets don’t write rhyming poems.

MOU

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 25, 2019 7:28 PM

She didn’t teach you anything about satire or irony, did she? The difference between prose and poetry is that whereas prose conveys mainly information, poetry conveys verbal “images”. The rhyme scheme, by the way, was introduced to help illiterates remember poems (as they couldn’t read them) eg, The Canterbury Tales, and later expanded into other forms.
Next lesson: Look up “irony” and “satire” and “touch in cheek”.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 7:45 PM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

Everyone in the entire family had complete disdain for poetry because of my mother.
I grew up knowing every God damned fucking poet in CANADA.

Never read a poem I really liked.

P.S. I have two famous dead Canadian poets on my walls in my living room as paintings.

MOU

Jack_Garbo
Jack_Garbo
Dec 25, 2019 8:00 PM

Praising others, specially with false accolades, does not compensate for your own deficiencies.

MASTER OF UNIVE
MASTER OF UNIVE
Dec 25, 2019 8:07 PM
Reply to  Jack_Garbo

I don’t praise anyone and never have. I’m not an active duty Reverend of the Anglican Church.

MOU

Chris Hastings
Chris Hastings
Dec 25, 2019 1:53 AM

Just the ticket.