Starlight Under The Oak Tree

Starlight Under The Oak Tree

Claudia B. Liedtke

I listened to her laugh, my heart filling with gold.

This woman in my arms, forever to hold.

Is this what starlight sounds like? I thought as she bound through grass,

barefoot, dress waving in the short summer draft.

They were so delicate, those little flowers in her little hands,

shaped so perfectly to her hair in gentle blonde strands.

"Take them, take them!" She said to me.

"They match your eyes, your hair, even the stains on your knee."

And I couldn't help but wonder, as I held the stems in my hand:

Is this was starlight feels like--to be wanted, to be had?

She tucked each stem delicately into my hair,

giggling sweet laughter and spinning back to the golden, moonlit air.

"You're beautiful, you're kind." I wanted to say,

to tell her she was the light of my life, may it be dull and grey.

And still I kept quiet, as she leaned into my neck,

sleeping so peacefully I wouldn't dare wake her to stretch.

So when the morning came and she she stood to pull away,

I held onto her her with a grasp that would not break as I begged:

"Do not leave me, you are too fair."

She only smiled, pulling a petal from my hair.

"I must go, for my home is not here. It is up there,

where the danger of evil will always be clear."

And I felt my fists weaken, felt my heart start to break.

For she was going, and she was leaving me with this heart only to ache.

"I promise to return," she told me, tears in her eyes.

"I will come to this oak and will teach you to fly."

But her words brought no comfort, no rest to my soul,

as I watched my dear stardust disappear from this hole.

And the day after that, I walked home all alone,

pulling flowers from my hair, and knowing she would come home.

Is this what the moon feels like, left bare

as the sun turns night to day and the world goes ‘round, wild and fair?

When is it left, with no star in the sky,

to be lonely and holed up in its home way up high?

And I know I do not want the evil to come,

to hurt this fair girl made of stars, grit, and death overcome.

The next night, to the oak I did not return.

For I knew the evil she hid from was the evil I never did burn.

The evil I held like a baby to my chest,

to keep and to hold and to stick near my rest.

And though I was not there, at that oak on the hill,

I could have sworn I heard something tired and shrill.

That is what starlight sounds like, I know, when it cries.

To be lonely and fragile and red ‘round the eyes.

It goes on for days, every night for a row,

until all I hear now are the lonely echoes.

I'm sorry, my stardust, for making you cry,

maybe you will find someone like me, only less evil, up there in the sky.

Where is that safe home you have made way on high,

to keep out the sadness I am sorry to haven't let die?

Is this what starlight feels like, to be cherished, to be loved.

I would have no answer, for she is back in the sky as only my beloved.

-Claudia