Serendipoetry
Bright Lights on Earth
Luminous electric grist
brushed over the night world:
White Korea, Dark Korea,
tofu detailing all Japan,
Bangkok on a diamond saddle,
snowed-in Java and Bali
cirlced by shadow isles,
Cairo in its crushed-ice coupe,
dazzling cobwebbed Europe
that we've seen go black.
Now the streetlights don't
switch off for wars. The past
is fuel of glacé continents,
it rims them in stung salt,
Australia in her sparsely starred
flag hammock. Human light
is the building whose walls
are inside. It bleeds the planet
but who could be refused
the glaring milk of earth?
-- Les Murray
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