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Dark Sky
Back home, the dark is overborne
By a billion busy diodes
Emitting artificial light,
Thence seeping out into the night.
But, up here, there are auroras,
Constellations, and nebulae—
Or so the motel owners say:
“Last week, we saw the Milky Way.”
So, we wind through wooded headlands
To join a remnant, dousing lamps,
Spraying mists of citronella,
Lying down and looking stellar.
Like unto ancients gazing up
To see a billion burning fires
Ages past—a cloud of witness
Now revealed, but just in darkness.
.
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Joseph Stuart is a lawyer living and practicing in Northern Virginia. He maintains a blog here: https://mightyinditers.typepad.com/hereunder/
New Year greetings!
I found this poem full of mystery and mastery. The rhyme scheme was striking and unusual.
Thanks for this.
A journey into the stars….very mystical and poetic, Joseph!
Joseph, I like the steady pull of your meter that doesn’t let up until the last stanza. And I love how in that last stanza you tie your experience to that which mankind has known for thousands of years. What town were you in? Crestone, Colorado, by any chance?
Thanks for your kind comment.
We visited Headlands Dark Sky Park outside of Mackinaw City, Michigan at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.
A good poem should say a lot in few words, and this poem epitomizes that ideal. Your easy transitions, Joseph, from the mundane vernacular to the numinous trans-human bespeak a delicate grasp of the principles of logico-temporal fluidity and a firm understanding of the techniques of rhetoric. Your relaxed meter and your restraint in regard to end rhyme dovetail perfectly with the narrative.
What a vivacious and energetic way to tell about a weekend at one of those happy retreats where street lights are limited! You take as much care with words as they do with local permits to convey the wondrous effect. I love “looking stellar.”