©Matthew Daniels 2 December 2011

There are many things that keep the stars away

Daylight is their shroud, cold as promises

Seek them at night because they dance and make might

But we UN-new them with hush hours and light

There are many things that keep the stars away

Such as our will to give, revival instincts

We don’t look to see because looking isn’t free

Though we talk about them in reverie

Children don’t ask

We take them to task

The first truth of learning

Is that fire means burning

But as old as we get

Only these things are set:

Change is a flask, every one is yearning,

And each is lost in a bet

There are many people who keep the stars away

It’s all in the expertise, choice collections

To others we point because no effort is joint

Yet we complain to the ones we anoint

There are many people who keep the stars away

Hands full of freedoms, unused as treasure

The wanderer commits to what he omits

Still he has too much faith in his wits

Children won’t ask

We’d take them to task

The second truth of learning

Comes from all of the churning

But old as we feel

Only these things we steal:

Rights in the cask, fear full in earning,

And we traded them in a deal

There are many places that keep the stars away

Making a market for maps, lined as faces

There is no self that fits on a shelf

Despite how it plays like an elf

There are many places that keep the stars away

Earth is the one that doesn’t, long weights

The truest of pulls can’t be grabbed like the bulls

Notwithstanding the eyes and their wools 

Children can’t ask

We took them to task

The third truth of learning

Is the most concerning

But old as we weren’t

Only these things we burnt:

Hope at the masque, birth rite to yearning,

And all the questions we spurnt