lying stars

by Karyn Huntting Peters

from this vantage point,
in my thoughts alone i venture out,
walking silently along the parapet wall,
running my hand along its wet roughness
in the beginning twilight.

beyond, lights glow and flicker in reds and blues,
and music rises and climbs to meet me on the hillside,
a strained, haunting version of its harmonious city self.

nothing passes the barrier of this aging stone wall
that is not but a shell of itself, a copy of life,
a haunting of time gone by though still in view,
as a long-dead star shining hollow in the night.

as twilight ebbs and dies,
i venture now from my thoughts
and still in them rise, self joining my contemplations
on the thief of time, and on this barrier stay as stone
as lying stars appear in time in black skies.

lying as staid stars, i stay and steal time
over that which has stolen so much from me.