On an ancient Earth
whose forests that fed mastodons have transmuted
into clapboard retirement homes,
stars stare uncaring from pitiless skies,
recording our actions,
belying our dreams.
It is August, in Flagstaff, Arizona,
whose telescopes have eyed
stars and planets,
discovered them, cherished them.
Four in the morning, when I,
a metro-dweller famished for stars strewing skies
like shattered glass the streets and parkways of post-urban Brooklyn,
depart my motel doorway seeking the heavens,
seeking the dark.
No one moves in the rooms around me.
The parking areas stand empty.
Yet yellow lamps emblazon the night;
and the countryside beyond sparkles
with streetlights to hide us
from starry eyes
recording above.
I walk through daylight-in-night time
until I stumble upon a small park,
slog to a corner shadowed by bushes,
the earth's sacred greenery breathing its last.
I peer through this patch of darkness,
and Perseus, Auriga, Orion, and the Milky Way
stare back
with a beauty beyond Hollywood,
beyond my ken, beyond my feeble pen.
Blue Rigel winks to red Betelgeuse,
nods to orange Aldebaran,
and a shooting star surpassing Polaris
ratifies my sacrament, my greeting of love.
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