I walked along the worn and muddied path 
The rain had stopped its incessant pattering 
But the ground I tread upon remained damp 
The path gave way to a clearing, overgrown and unkept 
I’ve never seen a cemetery 
 
But that day I saw the graves of the cosmos sprawled out in that clearing 
Great celestial bodies compressed into pathetic wooden cells 
And strewn haphazardly about the weeds, only half submerged 
For who would bother to dig a proper grave for a star? 
We talk about the stars and the dead like they are one and the same 
 
They are not 
 
Stars burn away every time you close your eyes for just a little too long 
We don’t even have names for all of them, such distant and otherworldly beings 
When people die, they are dressed in their best clothes and posed in ornate boxes 
When our sun outgrows its own skin, we won’t even watch it happen 
She’ll be a goddess of a skeleton, dusted with celestial ash 
 
When our sun dies, she won’t have anyone left to say goodbye to 
But as I make my way through the thickets and ferns of that clearing, 
Of that graveyard of the stars and planets 
I know what the sun would do, if she could see me right now 
She’d look me dead in the eye, 
 
And sigh