Aquarius

He is large, clumsy, inarticulate:
and he carries a shallow pan filled with white,
or cream, or light, or wincing happiness.
It slops, as he hurks and hesitates
his way across the stibbled ecliptic,
poor man! A reluctant king, who limps
up to his ankles in freezing cloud,
as anxious to please and sure to fail
as Maximilian of Mexico.

This is the awkward dawn of an age
writ in the stars with dry-erase; this,
the white-board of heaven, where
a mortal's brainstorm is a bullet point
scrawled each in its personal faded color.
Cast your eyes up to the dribbling pan
of our distressed and twitching lord:
this is the spill of compassion;
this is the splash of eternity.