From inside your headphones, behind the chirring decibels,
the white rumble of stars, syncopation of falling stars,
the artifice of a blue cosmos in illuminated water—
you are late for home, late for the mangoes and the rice.
Each movement you make parts another family’s serenity,
parts it and restores it to the clear, aside a pyramid of leaves….
From Divine Fire, by David Woo, available here.
To read the rest of the poem and David Woo’s description of what inspired it, go to the “In Their Own Words” feature at the Poetry Society of America’s website.