Photo by Collyn Ware

                                 

 Night Sky 
  
 Honeyed ribbons of the day hug the horizon
 where embers smolder along the ridge.
  
 It’s dark, you say,
 as you open the barrel of your flashlight
 to check for batteries before you walk the path
 from the campsite to the lake.
  
 But already I stand at the lake’s edge
 where constellations of pebbles flicker in the airglow
 and waves lap the shore in lunar time.
  
 And above—oh, the too wondrous above—
 the sky is a feast of light.
 Cassiopeia, Ursa Major and Minor, and stars
 which stud the heavens with opal and moonstone.
  
 The universe really puts on a great spread, I say
 and take your hand as we walk towards the boat landing.
  
 This is the hand that held the flashlight, long since pocketed,
 the hand that now holds mine as if to say:
  
 Let meteors shower the hills 
 and comets blaze in the treetops.
 Let dark become light
 and the moon on the lake our lodestar.
  
 For there is galaxy enough, 
 here and now, 
 when even the sand is celestial.