starlight
In the still that lingers after the dog goes to bed
i wake, and open my window
PVS-14 dummy-corded to my wrist
held in the palm like a camcorder
i peered into the abyss and saw
firstly, the neighbors had IR floodlights illuminating their yard.
i looked up, past the houses and trees and bats and planes
and i saw stars
but words cannot adequately describe what i saw //
because growing up, I had never learned the stars
outside childhood encyclopedias
and camping trips
i merely thought they were neat, and ignored the heavens above
for more interesting terrestrial means
in the shadow of New York City, there is endless light, drowning
out the heavens, replacing it with
a synthetic glow caused by reflected and mismanaged radiance
and so i never saw more than a dozen stars at once.
the moon was my celestial fascination, having once intensely photographed it
but those times have been long gone //
and so I as I gazed into the heavens, i was struck by a brilliant light
so bright it caused my tube to halo, and it became my favorite star, Antares
which due to a quirk of physics, emits far more infrared light
than visible, so a device like the PVS-14
could easily pick up the signature
but it wasn't just Antares.
many of the brightest constellations appeared, but it was different
there were stars in between the lines
stars I had never seen before in my life
stars i didn't even knew existed
the heavens above, revealed to me.
I must have more.
and it was consuming.
a burning desire to know more
to see more
to finally feel again
and so i realized I must travel far to see
just like the light travels far to see me
and I had to meet in the middle
in a field in the middle of nowhere new jersey
and i powered my trusty PVS-14 on,
and the heavens opened up to me
the milky way and the scorpion lined up
and to the north polaris and the big bear
clouds moving in and out
but it was worth it
and right before i packed everything up
on that cool late-spring night
i looked up
and i saw moving stars, one slow
one streaked across my vision //
waiting in the long quiet
i made a wish on a shooting star
and drove home under the warm, green
starlight