By Starlight

Now far from those harsh lights and the glare over cities,

alone

By a clearing in a forest, we lie down

For the first time in our lives

Together under stars

And, keeping the earth in its place behind our backs, we

stare

Upward into the ancient stream of starlight

Whose current, though it appears

To falter, to waver,

Has made its way to our eyes through barely imaginable

Down-curved ravines of space to dazzle us

With its streamers and wildfires,

Its ice-laden glitter,

The unconstellated burning rubble of godlings, outcast

And spilled from the zodiac and constantly falling

As they have always fallen

Even before eyes turned

To wonder and will go on falling whether we stay to watch

Or soon give back our small share of the spectrum

To the oldest of nights, to the expansive

Gestures of a universe

We share so pointedly: some (see there) bloomed long ago

And dimmed, yet shine through lifetimes without a source,

With no beginning left

Behind them now

To begin with, but only an ever-shortening reach of glory

That flickers in darkness. All will consume themselves

And be reborn, as we are

Here, having followed

Their example, love, as fixed and erring and fair and

steadfast,

Not star-crossed yet, but truly catching them

As they slant to us past hemlocks, as rich

And clear as our silence.