STANLEY AIMS FOR THE STARS

Stanley Aims for the Stars
by K. Jared Hosein (me)
based on a dream and a thought.


The first night the stars went out,
You would have expected more hullaballoo.
But there was just a murmur
And a moment of silence
On Channel 22.

Though the astronomers would often sigh
And the poets and painters would often cry,
The people went back to work
And the children went back to play,
And they discovered they maybe never really
Needed the stars, anyway.

But Stanley was not an astronomer,
He could not paint, he could not write,
He was just a boy with a telescope, bothered
By the starless sky at night.

He asked his parents, he wrote city hall,
He asked the Senate to help fix it all.
"One day," they all said, "One day it will be done."
But weeks, months passed,
And the one day would never come.

Stanley looked at his trophies
All lined up on the shelf
And decided if you want something done,
You just have to do it yourself.

It wasn't long before the ship was ready,
Scrap metal and tin held not so steady.
A crowd gathered in the yard,
Palms to mouth, in awe of the sight
As Stanley gave a thumbs up
And blasted off into the night.

When he got to space, he saw the first star,
It was there but silent, dead and black as tar.
His ship steered about this star-shaped mass of pitch
And soon - voila! - he had found the star's On/Off switch!

But when he flicked it, it did not light,
"Maybe it blew," he said, "Or I'm not doing it right."
It was then he noticed the cord
Floating across the Milky Way,
Connecting from star to star
But to where? Stanley could not say.

So the ship followed the cord
To find where the plug might be.
And then he saw it there,
A giant ball of light energy.

There had been other plugs,
Some for moon, some for sun,
All plugged into this energy ball,
Except for the stars' one.

There was an alien there,
Whose name was too hard to pronounce
And oddness too hard to deny,
But nevertheless, he had unplugged the plug
And Stanley had to ask him why.

The alien said, "The stars have no use
So I unplugged them from the ball."
"No," Stanley said, "You're wrong.
That's not right at all!
You should see the things they inspire,
The sparks they might ignite,
All the things that might transpire
All due to a starry night."

The alien said he had never seen such.
Stanley said, "If you've never really looked at them,
You can't expect to see much.
Back in my planet, you will appreciate,
The beautiful things the stars helped create."

So they journeyed all the way back
And the alien saw so many things,
That he had lost track.
Paintings, films, poems galore
About the sky, the night,
The stars and seashore.

Back home for him, they never noticed the stars,
They didn't miss them when they were gone,
Because they never saw what they are,
They never saw what they could do.
But now the alien had his own story to tell
Of things his people never knew.

And so, Stanley went live on Channel 22,
And listed three things he wanted everyone to do,
The first was lie on their backs,
The second was gaze at the sky,
The third was bid that blank sheet of blankness
A quiet goodbye.

And then the stars all came back on
And the applause resounded from below.
And it was only then people realized
Even in the darkest night,
How bright the stars would glow.

Stanley looked at his new trophy
And placed it neatly on his shelf,
The trophy was for realizing:
He wanted something done
And went to do it himself.

----

I've been planning to illustrate it soon or get someone to illustrate it, sorta children's book-y style. Might need to edit a bit first to fix the rhythm. Did you like this? Did it move you? Was it just stupid?

Too busy looking at tardis' face...

Will you really do that? =D That will be much appreciated, if you're so inclined! <3

Yeah, I have it on other places. But thought it couldn't hurt to post it on here too.