Hero Under Stars

One cannot see his face or form.
Stars occlude his every move.
He is the rushing thunderstorm,

And the country's gentler mood,
When the flowers begin to grow
And the pillar grows its groove.

Crowned by moonlight and starglow,
He carries the sword of fire and wrath,
But too he knows to bend down low

So that children can hear him laugh.
He has a hand and heart as true
As his commitment to his path,

As the sparks that flutter blue
From the forging of Damascus steel.
Like the serpent, he can strike too,

And cause a wound that will never heal.
But he kindles a fire from the ember.
It is this warmth that others will feel,

And that some stars will remember,
And about which the flowers will bloom,
Startling as roses in December,

Yet finding between the rocks the room.
A hero is not all stone and tooth,
Nor is he all high and lonely doom,

Nor commitment to some greater truth.
He is he who holds the love and memory
Of the old with the growth of youth,

Who unites what was with what will be,
In a spate of fire and of light,
And causes the see to become a tree,

And cast its apples into flight.
Where the seeds land, no one knows,
But not all can land in deepest night,

Nor in lands of eternal snows.
Some must take root in spite of all,
And become the hero fed by starglows

Who rises to his country's call,
And is not afraid to call desire
Down to garb him in streams of crystal

That all about him break and soar higher,
And make him shine out afar.
He becomes the incarnation of light and fire,

The one who inspires the minstrels' bars,
The one hidden by his own light, the hero under stars.