Every day, whether we realize it or not,
we choose one of two stars to guide us,
a star as ephemeral as our life,
a star water can wash away. One star
is made of packed sugar, the other
of packed salt. Water melts both.
If we choose the star of sugar
we will follow all the sweet things
of the earth, the candied surfaces
that glisten, reflecting a honied light.
If salt, we will go the way of the seas—
restless, tossing broken dolls
and the timbers of drowned ships
onto everyone's shore.
The way of salt
is the way of sorrow and loss,
for salt seeds every tear
before it blossoms, just as death
seeds every birth. Salt is the pillar
erected to those who have looked
when they were warned not to.
At night the star illuminates our sleep,
yet before dawn it is washed away,
so that every morning we must choose again.
The poor choose the star of salt.
They break it into pieces, grind it up,
and eat it with their rough bread.
Salt is the only star in their heaven.
It is no choice at all. Invariably
the rich choose the star of sugar.
Under its light they build roads
that pass the shanties of the poor
and lead to gingerbread mansions.
I choose the star of salt. I follow it
into grocery stores and factories.
The cashiers and barbers watch me,
and the steelworkers and foreign pickers
bent over shovels or rows of lettuce.
They are silent, brooding, distrustful.
Every morning I choose their star
because it is my star also,
because it is the rich man's star,
although he doesn't know it, not yet.
Every morning I choose this star
because the salt grains hiss
on the shore as the sea washes up
the ground bones of the starless dead.
- Morton Marcus |
