;
Night Sky
At night, on the shores of Lake Powell
when the breeze is gentle
and you can hear the waves slapping against the side of the boat,
I almost don’t want to look up
because I feel eternity bearing down on me,
and I feel very, very small.
But one clear, cool night
I left my tent after everyone was asleep,
found a patch of soft sand, sat,
then lay back
and stared out into the immensity.
To look out into space is to look back in time.
That little star, there?
Maybe those photons left the surface
the year I was born,
only entering my eyes now
so many years, so many heartaches later.
Out and out,
far past the small paperback novel of my life,
maybe that light
started on its journey
when Genghis Khan strode the steppes
sowing fear wherever he went.
That one, there.
The year those photons left the surface of that star
Constantine stood in York
receiving the accolades of the people
as he was made Emperor of Rome.
That one?
Gave up its light
when this planet was still primordial soup,
the building blocks of life.
And so I slept
with the weight of heaven, the motes in the eyes of God
looking down on poor, useless, ephemeral me
and smiling.
;
Becky Sirrine is no kind of published poet. She has been a Legislative Assistant at the Arizona Legislature for the past twelve years. She recently found her poetic voice again, after a long hiatus, and has been utterly unable to shut it up. She is a divorced mother of five, who lives in Mesa, Arizona, with two of her adult children, two of her four grandchildren, and her much loved and pampered three pet tarantulas.
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What an interesting poem that is full of nostalgia. You have captured well those star gazing emotions for us.
Wow! The sky can bring out so much emotions. It was nice to read yours.
Very imaginative and moving.