{"id":2352,"date":"2006-12-11T15:56:39","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T23:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mortaine.com\/blog\/poetry\/burn-still-the-bright-stars\/"},"modified":"2006-12-13T10:27:18","modified_gmt":"2006-12-13T18:27:18","slug":"burn-still-the-bright-stars","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mortaine.com\/blog\/poetry\/burn-still-the-bright-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Burn Still the Bright Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By, Stephanie Cottrell BryantFebruary 3, 2003<\/p>\n<p><em>In memory of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew of  five men and two women, lost on February 1, 2003.<\/em><br \/>\n<a name=\"cutid1\"><\/a><br \/>\nWhen I lay on my back to gaze at the stars<br \/>\nMy dreams filled with silvered ships and men<br \/>\nI lay dreaming, imagining my space craft,<br \/>\nOther children beyond the next star, dreaming, awake.<br \/>\nThe stars bright in my eyes, I never forgot<br \/>\nThe red-gold blazing of my juvenile hope.<\/p>\n<p>That long summertime of youth and new hope<br \/>\nFaded to dark night, kissing beneath the stars.<br \/>\nOh! Our hearts blazed, our faces flushed to forget<br \/>\nOur minds and our breasts burned for the hands of men.<br \/>\nWe lied, we loved, we slept; we pretended not to wake.<br \/>\nI turned my mind and efforts to. . . other crafts.<\/p>\n<p>These hands that wash, cook, knit, sew, craft,<br \/>\nThat hold an infant, brush the soft whispery locks of hope.<br \/>\nThese hands lie still and soft until they wake.<br \/>\nThese hands reach down to clasp those of my stars.<br \/>\nThey open jars, turn gears and gaskets, as strong as most men.<br \/>\nThese hands burn silent. They forget.<\/p>\n<p>My hands burn silence, as I forget<br \/>\nCaught in crescendos of my sonorous craft.<br \/>\nSoul-filling thunder, high acclaims of men,<br \/>\nAll the great golden voice of my sorrow and hope.<br \/>\nAnd I sing, my voice free, unto the stars&#8211;<br \/>\nMy song blazing high, to dawn&#8217;s new waking.<\/p>\n<p>Softer songs fill the dreary hall where a wake<br \/>\nLimps on. Teared faces try to forget<br \/>\nThe lost, weak eyes, dull glass, darkened stars.<br \/>\nNo man of medicine or science could save her, for all their craft.<br \/>\nIn this room of sorrow and loss, the quieting of hope,<br \/>\nWe come round together and hold close our grieving men.<\/p>\n<p>I am an explorer, a woman among men.<br \/>\nMy sex&#8217;s long dreams of flight now awake.<br \/>\nI, a pioneer, a teacher, a lover, a friend. I hope<br \/>\nTo bring back dreams to our daughters, who shall not forget<br \/>\nThat above this world is my hearth, my home, my craft&#8211;<br \/>\nMy crew, my laughter, my family among the stars.<\/p>\n<p>We wake today to a vision; we cannot forget<br \/>\nHope. A blazing streak was one, fragile, spacecraft.<br \/>\nDream still the young men and women. Burn still the bright stars.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a name=\"cutid1\"><\/a><small>Copyright 2003, Stephanie Cottrell Bryant. Please <\/small><small><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/userinfo.bml?user=mortaine&#038;mode=full\">contact the author<\/a> for permission to republish this work. Permission is automatically granted to share this work with the family, friends, and colleagues of the <em>Columbia<\/em> crew.<\/small><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p> <strong>What is a Sestina?<\/strong><br \/>\nA sestina is a poetic form in which you have six stanzas of six lines each, switching around the ending word for each line according to a specific formula. There is no set rhythm to a sestina (so, no <a href=\"http:\/\/newmedia.colorado.edu\/Content\/vc\/shakes1\/iambic.html\">iambic pentameter<\/a> to worry about here), but most poets use some form of rhythmic regularity. I haven&#8217;t in this one, except to try not to limp too much.Sestina resources:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uni.edu\/english\/craft\/sestina.html\">Sestina Page<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.english.upenn.edu\/~afilreis\/88\/sestina.html\">sestina (poetic term)<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.geocities.com\/Paris\/Villa\/8287\/sestina.htm\">The Sestina Page<\/a> (on Geocities&#8211; has popups, and a list of links, some of which are dead).<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baymoon.com\/~ariadne\/form\/sestina.htm\">Poetry Form: Sestina<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By, Stephanie Cottrell BryantFebruary 3, 2003 In memory of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew of five men and two women, lost on February 1, 2003. When I lay on my back to gaze at the stars My dreams filled with silvered ships and men I lay dreaming, imagining my space craft, Other children [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2345,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2352","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Burn Still the Bright Stars - Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mortaine.com\/blog\/poetry\/burn-still-the-bright-stars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Burn Still the Bright Stars - Games, Crafts, and Thoughts from Mortaine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By, Stephanie Cottrell BryantFebruary 3, 2003 In memory of the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew of five men and two women, lost on February 1, 2003. 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