I can shine for you

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Must try and fit that into my writing somewhere.

And now for our scheduled poem:

With six days to Christmas,
as I fingertip pictures
on your back's narrow canvas
(La Gioconda, Whistler's mother, that vicar
of Raeburn's gliding forever, perfectly balanced)

you tell me the tale of our shoulderblades,
how they're traces left over from seraphim wngs
of their reticent buds, their seeds,
so either we've fallen, or feathery inklings
are waiting inside us to lift us and guide us.

Science has measured the sole distance
left for the mad, that span from moon to earth,
to the nearest inch.
They beamed lasers at mirrors placed on the surface.
How strangely unwavering light is.

On the train north, my feet huge
as tombstones on the opposite seat,
I'm much too percussive and lose
hours chewing over my Collected F. Scott:
For sale - baby shoes, never used.

Home and the moon's scattered over the lough.
I know why you're crying -
the dreamt-of mistake,
that slip of a thing folded into intself like
a badly injured or broken wing.

-- Nick Laird

"Scenes from the Nativity"