As I step out beneath planets and stars,
Mars and Venus,
the familiar Big Dipper,
and the twinkle, twinkle little pinpricks
of the unnamed millions,
I fill my pockets with diamond dust
and feel the whole world open up—
a cosmic book of poetry
with no beginning and no end,
singing possibilities,
freedom, mystery,
laying down new rhythms and rhymes
in my heart and mind,
bestowing permission from gods
and goddesses of universal love
to be true to myself,
my thoughts, my feelings.

Doubts that have been quashed
for way too many years
rear up like wild ponies,
leave me standing in the spin
of unbridled liberty—
nearly throw me off balance
in the dizzying magnitude
of the uncharted space
they open up.

Then I race to catch up,
rise weightless and soaring
above gravity’s pull,
above small-minded certainty
and the safety of dos and don’ts,
into the vast ambiguity of my place
in the universe—
knowing,
(as much as one can know such things)
that my place could be any place,
hooked to any one of these stars,
as close as the Milky Way’s beguiling path
or traveling through darkness
beyond nothingness.

As I step out beneath planets and stars,
I recognize my own star stuff,
cut the ropes that bind my wings,
and cast my lot with diamond dust.

                                                 Glenda Breeden (Oct. 2016) for The Poplar Grove Muse