At night when you look up

into the darkness

that alphas and omegas

with your furies, take

one second to think of

the way grass grows

at the peak of summer. Think

of how in late winter

the snow-melt gathers

in the cracks of rocks

while bears pause to drink

at the rim of the night sky

and the crow of your soul

sits on the bottommost

branch of a gray-leafed oak

and know that the way

the stars descend is not yours;

that you are not the child

of ascendant stars and moons;

that of all the lies that prophets

tell the most damaging is hope.

Make no mistake about it,

when you hear a friendly voice

telling you what will come,

say that you already know:

your horoscope says pain.