Give me everything, said the sky to the sun.
Give me what you were born to do.

Share your light in every corner of my dream.
Let glow the last turn and fold into night.

Then when I am sleeping, still watch over me.
I was once a star too, don’t you know?

This is what I have done for the skies before
from which the pouring rain emptied. Birth,

the system of skies, is what I know. How
we continue is how we live. The universe,

then, the first and last breath, you must
learn, too, is something we can never see,

my sun, but we have each other. Remember
how I cradled you as you moved through

me? However far, I will always remember
as near, However close, always, this fear.

Alan Semerdjian is an Armenian-American writer, musician, and educator. He is the 9th poet laureate of New York’s Nassau County and lives and teaches English in New Hyde Park, NY.