Saturday, January 1, 2011

Country Stars

An urbanized sky is a sorry thing, with barely a handful of dim and dreary stars. Travel to the country, however, and you will find a treasure trove of brilliant and luminous constellations. It is easy to forget the beauty of God's creation when you spend your life trapped in the hazy, cement walls of a city, but a quick trip to the wilderness will remind you, in an instant, of the inestimable vastness of the universe.


Country Stars

The stars of the city are pale and grey,
a glimmer of heavenly cheer,
awoken to shutter the elderly day
in shadow. This stale career

is all that persists of the glorious crown
that once superseded the earth,
as timid ascension and settling down
deposits the stars in their berth.

But travel a little beyond the divide
that severs the city and wood,
where rivers run deep and horizons are wide
and wild, and then if you should

look up on a cloudless and equable night,
the stars that you see overhead
will glory the sky in a radiant light
that rouses the living and dead.