I have the best conversations around the telescope. After the book signing Saturday, I headed east to the James River Star Party. Most of the interactions were pleasantly unremarkable, but a few young fellows stopped by, barely twenty years old.
The difficulty of being young is something I’d like to write about, but a.) I’m not anymore, and b.) nobody needs my (unqualified) advice.
The question won’t leave me alone, though. One of them mentioned light pollution, and a spark flared in the dark.
Maybe this will be a book someday, or perhaps it’ll stay as a bizarre poem on the internet. And the one about old books showed up, unbidden, a stray cat at the mental door, mewing, finally deciding to grace the pages with it’s mangy presence.
While they’re on the gloomy side, and intended so, they’re not meant to be despairing. What good is that? This is me thinking out loud, with the aim to do something.
I hope they’re of service to you.
Light Pollution
“They’re taking the sky away” the young bucks said
The guys who had seen aliens when they were high
and even when they weren’t
Unlikely candidates to worry about the children
But they do
“Used to sit on this old bridge back in the county, and count the stars
Now they’re close to Zero.”
We shivered in the dark, strangers talking science at first, and then things bigger
like God and the future
“Light pollution, man”
“YES” (with a lean forward)
That’s how to put it
The screens and the stores and the neon idols wash out God’s porchlight
Because all you need to see is on TikTok
Stooping over
Forever looking
down.
The runes in the sky pointing the way to the infinite slowly erased
A creeping forgetfulness
The paper maps at the trailhead torn down
Like the posters of the hostages
An oak leaf fell the other day in absolutely calm
Landed on the tired green with a crash, and I knew it was okay
Seasons turn, and old people die and we mourn but our tears don’t burn
I’ve never been to war, but I’ve been in the hospitals
When the boys are back in town
There’s a stench that’s almost invisible
Mostly behind their eyes
Young skin isn’t supposed to look like that
And kids should have both hands
But some sandboxes eat them
Yes, there’s a season for some things and then there’s not for others
Men used to sail by her, but now they build oceans that drown the north star
And we know, we know.
And those young bucks know
There’s something wrong.
My Friend the Dust
Read an old book
Imbued with the autumn of 1842
Or smudged with smoke from London pressing at the windows to mock
The author as he sat shivering in his garret
Say hello to my friend the Dust
Who lurks on the pages of treasures
And lives in the grooves of records
of forgotten violin players
Scratching the melody of candlelight
And silverware that tarnished
A long, long time ago
Words crafted, wrought with care
Waiting, waiting
If you’d like.