Constellations on the Ground: Dark Skies
A poem for our newest star
We drove out to the old cow pasture, on worn dirt roads, over a meadow, following a few poorly lit signs proclaiming Dark Skies, arrows pointing ahead. You were tipsy enough you half steered off the path but it didn’t matter, since we were in the middle of nowhere, inching along like lost turtles. We slowed to a stop, rolled down the window and asked for directions. A silhouette pointed in the direction of catty corner and said turn your headlights off and follow the astronomers’ red flashlights. So we parked and stumbled blindly from the car, blinking our eyes like voles emerging from the earth. We bumbled our way around back and rustled the ratty old blanket from the trunk and turned and tripped over something, maybe a log or a rock on the ground, but caught ourselves, and lurched forward, groping in the blackness, other seekers fumbling around us. Dim crimson lights pulsated and we followed them, like lemmings over a cliff, like sailors to sirens, and in the shadows the scene unfolded: A sea of telescopes and bodies came into focus, and slowly we could see in the dark. The sky was alive, luminous, spilling out in a glowing swath. We fell headlong into the night. Constellations unfolded, spinning like carnival rides, the white net of the Milky Way pulled us in, Saturn’s rings emerging as clear as day through borrowed lenses. We laid on our backs on the blanket on the hard, damp ground looking up at the spectacle of stars. As we gazed at the heavens, our faces were reflected back at us, like mirrors, kaleidoscopes refracting endless waves, showing us that we are constellations on the ground, part of all that has ever been, a line on the landscape of clouds. Drawn into the darkest skies, a breath in the sea of infinity beckoned: Come back to earth or stay in the starlight forever.
This poem was published earlier this year in Choeofpleirn Press’ Glacial Hills Review Summer 2023 edition. Choeofpleirn is a literary press located in northeastern Kansas at the foot of the Glacial Hills.
You can learn about Choeofpleirn here: https://www.choeofpleirnpress.com.
You can purchase the Glacial Hills Review book here: https://www.amazon.com/Glacial-Hills-Review-Summer-2023/dp/B0C9SLD73Y
Wondrous, the first word to come to mind as I read this. You expertly pulled me in with your treacherous drive, then walk, down the dirt road. What danger or curiosity is she leading me to? I wondered. What better way to guide us to the light in the darkness than to take us down a dark road to discover our own galaxy?
You made me cry. Again.