After Grace

The night they smoked marijuana together

Caroline and Stephanie in Monaco at the shore

Grim as goddesses standing in the surf

On the horizon a shining spherical envelope

Metallic indistinct then quickly close

Blue to green to purple to white

Sparks and flames dancing on its surface

Burned like one and shivered like the other

Not cloud not plane not boat not star

Aspects of the bright object

Beginning to assume aesthetic meaning

The single tree in the forest

The life reviving herb

The emanation of beings that walk other paths

The star image encoded in juxtaposition

The problem being

Not to understand it but to stand it

The Mothership

A late manifestation of Grace