A denser brew of darkness as we walk,
blindly, down the pathway into night.
Heads craned back, we fill our eyes
with stars that start to fall from blackest skies,
moments too brief to register as real
and yet they pierce the heart
like all the greatest works of art.
Each glittering trail of light festoons the night
and feeds an appetite for more.

And more stars fall and, sore of neck,
we lay ourselves upon the ground
to contemplate the burning space debris
more comfortably.
Our still-warm selves the topmost skin
of all the layers of all that lived and now decays:
The future home of all we are and all we dream
in gleaming transit through the dark.
The earth that will replace our breath
and know the final number of our days.

© by Barbara Quick.
Used with the author’s permission.