Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today I'm going to read for you a poem called Big Finish by Kimberly Johnson.

Now that the last shaft of sunset has collapsed into that rubble of cloud, let's dust off and see how bright the stars are, the disclosed vault, spinning like a disco ball bin drilled

smack into Polaris. My oracle's a bullhorn for the end times, portending wars and rumors

of wars and the stars courses headlong through the heavens. And even though the astrophysicists,

as in chorus to the oracle, declare that all this sparkle,

every spectacular atom of it, is a death, the expired light of bodies that have burned themselves

down to nothing. Yet they are so bright and shimmery. And a shimmy seems their light to me sequins tilting into a spotlight.

Don't they move like jubilation on their wheel? And don't they flash with brash abandon? And if finally

they should quit their spheres and fall upon us, their apocalypse will surely seem a shower, not of wormwood, but

confetti, gleeful streaking down the sackcloth dark to pronounce our doom. A wop-bop-a-loop-bop,

a wap bam-boom. Kimberly Johnson was a new poet to me. Lately, for the daily poem, I've been reading out of a collection called Joy, 100 poems edited by Christian Wyman.

It's a lovely collection published in 2017, I believe, and you can buy it wherever you buy books.

But I recommend it.

It's a long, you know, 100 poems that reflect on

the idea and experience of joy. And this one caught my eye for a number of reasons. I wanted to

read it today. First was the thematic element of it. I really loved the image embedded in this poem. The narrator of the poem is

watching a meteor shower. And, you know, it's the middle of July, many of us on the 4th of July on

Independence Day had the experience of being able to watch some fireworks. And there's something so

zestful about that, right? So enthusiastic, so

it's so vibrant and alive about watching the sky light up with falling lights. And that's what

she's seeing just in a natural way. These are stars. It's a meteor shower. And it makes her feel

very alive. But at the same time, she recognizes that, as the poem says,

...