The formless pitch

The formless pitch                                                                               
 
When the stars go out at last,
God will fold up the tent,
 
His performance over for a while. 
We can all have a good rest.
 
The catch is that each star
must burn itself out deliberately,
 
voluntarily, against all good judgment,
accepting its own inherent emptiness
 
rather than the roaring flame
of its separate existence.
 
It will happen – it is foretold;
as one by one the innumerable,
 
temporal stars give way to the original face of God
made visible again in the formless pitch.
 
O child of God, you speak of stars while failing
to grasp the immediate at your fingertips.