Monday, October 22, 2012

"All the world will be in love with night"


In Love With Night

I wrote your name in silver stars,
That gleam aloft in darkened sky.
From Pluto all the way to Mars,
I wrote your name in silver stars.
In years to come they'll stand in bars,
And each of them will wonder why
I wrote your name in silver stars
That gleam aloft in darkened sky.

More poetry by Australian Kiwi, you're probably getting sick of it by now, but I like to share. Admittedly  the picture is not mine, I found that on the net, but the poem was written by my own hand, or, rather, typed by my own fingers.

I was inspired to write this by the line in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In Act III, Scene II, Juliet gives her soliloquy about Romeo (you know, the one where she says the famous line 'Where for art thou Romeo?), and says '...He will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night'. I have always felt an affinity with night, and this poem is a tribute to the beauty of the night sky, but it is also a love poem. I have dedicated it to someone I have deep, romantic feelings for, but, unfortunately these feelings are not returned. 

Yes, I do sound like a love struck idiot, don't I? Sitting around writing poetry about the night sky and my true love. *sigh* Oh well, I enjoy writing poetry, and it helps me relax.


One of my dreams is to go somewhere where I can lie on the ground at night, look up at the sky, and see nothing but stars from horizon to horizon. I have been told that you can do that in outback Australia, but I don't think I want to go alone. I'm not one for camping, and the only way I'd be getting into outback Australia would be in a caravan, and I'm not too fond of those things either. But, it would be worth it to see the stars. I know that, literally, stars are glowing balls of gas millions of miles away, but, to a poet's mind, they are so much more.

When I was a little girl, I used to believe that stars were the people in heaven. When my Nana Mac died, I found it very comforting to look up at the stars and imagine that I could pick her out from all the rest of them. Sometimes the stars are little hearts, beating in sync with my own, and other times they are the tears strewn across the universe by the weeping moon. They can be beautiful and radiant, or they can be cold and melancholy. A star is many different things to one person, depending on their mood when they gaze at the sky. 

On the subject of stars, perhaps the most famous work on them is Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'. I remember studying this painting in primary school, and being swept away by the beauty and sur-reality of it. I'm actually not a great fan of impressionistic art work, but something about 'Starry Night' really speaks to me. In some ways, I feel that I can see what Van Gogh saw the night he put his brush to his easel and painted what is now a classic artwork. He saw his dreams reflected in those tiny, pin-pricks of light strewn across the vast blackness. Unfortunately, Van Gogh's life was cut short by his eventual suicide, but his dreams live on in his artwork. This is how I see the stars now, as a reflection of my dreams, glowing brightly, waiting for me to catch them.

'Starry Night' by Vincent Van Gogh

I found another image on the internet called 'Starry Night Reimagined', which also struck a chord with me. It is a digital artwork, which shows an artist's impression of what Van Gogh might have seen the night he painted his masterpiece.

'Starry Night Reimagined'

I don't know who created this artwork, but all credit to them, this is a stunning digital work. Amazing what some people can do with computers, isn't it?

I could go on all night about stars, and how they remind me of my dreams and, by extension, the person I love, but I won't. That would be boring, but, my darling, if you come to me, I promise, from Pluto all the way to Mars, I'll write your name in silver stars.

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."
~ Vincent Van Gogh

~ Australian Kiwi

  

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