Astrodite

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        This poem was inspired by the original Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, who began her all-too-brief existence in the May 1959 issue of Action Comics.

Beautiful, blessed fairychild from a lonely distant star,

    last orphaned remnant of a great and noble race,

left a trail of tears across the void, glittering grief

    strewn lightyears wide across cold, indifferent space.

Cast adrift on ghostly currents by Fate's hard cruel hand,

    skirting in her desperate flight ætherial reef and shoal,

from otherwhere to now-here like awakening from a dream,

    she emerged above a warm blue world and knew it as her goal.

Tumbling past the planet's moon in her tiny hard cocoon,

    she breathed a sigh and shed one last grieving tear,

then reached out to touch that world, wrapped herself

    in a cloak of flame by motion woven from the planet's atmosphere.

As if the world shared her sorrow, a thin keening filled her ears

    as the ripped and battered air began ever faintly to glow.

And she saw, like diamond dust on black velvet, the lights

    of cities, bidding welcome, slide gracefully by below.

As the mythical Phoenix crashes and burns, then emerges,

    the bird renewed whole, from its own funeral pyre,

so compassion rises out of deepest grief and hurt and lifts

    our aspirations to make a better world soar ever higher.

Thus the sky spilled its blessing upon our needy Earth.

    From a shell broken on the ground emerged a maiden fair,

who breathed in the promise of a new and fruitful life,

    then rose up from this sodden Earth to dance upon the air.

geghfh

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