Midnight arrival

See the tentacles, a web of silver silk spreading

Knitting a corn field to reeds and seaweeds

Tall, haggard, and dead cornstalks compete

With tall grass reptiles for the same alluvium

That takes hundreds of years to yield substance

But lo, the earth turns at midnight tonight

The hubbub, a signal to indicate the arrival

Of the hundredth billion mark since onset of stars

There’ll be groans as those silver silks are severed

Groans as the hour forces fossils in fusion

Groans rising from a cavalcade already half-dead

Long frilled pantalettes and leghorn hats

Chasing broomsticks into a midnight gloom

The dark without ever a bloom of light

This is the plight of our stars, a tilt to trounce

The illusion of the past, the future, and the now

All will arrive at midnight torn, but there’s no fear

Tomorrow will fold within the waves of space

And all will arrive at midnight in peace or pieces