Stars, 
like lightbulbs 
are poor metaphors for great ideas 
because great ideas don’t dim over time
or explode (they really don’t).
They are, 
were 
always there
like God(s).

If that’s true, 
that ideas are the 
creators
artists, 
authors,
philosophers, 
what have you,
and we in turn, the stars,
it follows that ideas are not our products, 
our works of art
so much as we are theirs,

which makes sense —

observe a curling leaf
the smell of fall
the sound of dark
the old lobster in the sky

and sooner or later
The Voice of Fire, 
Nobel prize winning research on Quantum computing,
The Cat in the Hat,
whatever,
will begin molding you with intelligent hands 
as though you were made of clay or thick paint.

A few finishing touches later
and that which you can now
draw 
paint, 
code,
deploy in conversation,
or pen in haste on a grocery bill
has in fact
made you.

So,
how to be admired like the stars?

easy 
when your passion for rhetoric has waned
and you no longer want to run for office,
get up early one morning 
when it’s still dark
and observe —

how people will admire you then
though you’ll be too content to care

you
the old lobster
frozen in the dark. 

JM