In his hands he held two small stars,
hatchlings fallen from the nest of sky.
His palms burned with stellar storge*.
He thought himself lucky.
How often do you get to comfort what you love?
He himself had been lost once in a strange land.
At night he released them to their astral home.
They flew upward, two golden streaks against gravity.
That same night a boy rushed through his parent’s door,
“Father, I have seen two stars ascending from the earth.”
The father said to his son, “You have not seen such things.”
That same night in the stone house with the yellow door,
a man with scorched hands was offered succor by his wife.
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*storge – (storge) [pronounced: store gay] one of the Greek
words for love. Storge is familial or empathetic love.