Photo by Shot by Cerqueira on Unsplash
Spinning the star chart between their flashlight beams
As dusk yields and we climb out on the broad hill
Evan stretches and locks the legs under the telescope
While dad bands red cellophane across every torch
Now match today’s date with 10pm and remember how
To find north hold it up over your head shine this quick
That bright one’s a planet remember how you know
It doesn’t twinkle fireshade means it’s our neighbor
Be gentle don’t bump it I’ve got Andromeda centered
In the viewfinder but it will already have shifted slightly
Gliding its trillion stars and their moons in millimeters
Behind the local legends painted ancient on the dome
Such early cold in the absence of the star on these blue hills
And the darkness behind the trees at the edge of the meadow
Profound half moon tonight did you hear that Evan says
He’s just messing with you we’re safe anything out here
Far more afraid of us than we need to be of it then why
Are you whispering I didn’t mean to it’s just the sky
It’s Cassiopeia and the great swan the clear white star
Of Lyra and Ptolemy’s serpent raining stone and fire
As every fall begins I know you spotted the bears
Immediately but to see the hunter reach his bow above
The land we’d have to wait for the night’s coldest hours
And I know you’re cold already remember there’s cocoa
In the thermos we’ll go back to warm the car soon
But now look up at the galaxy’s pattern in giants
Uninventoried matter and force trading places
In each core and sweeping cloud of outflung fury
Ellie Snyder is a poet from Montana, now living next door in Boise, Idaho. She writes and manages socials for a nonprofit helping people, pets and the planet. Read her work in The Blood Pudding, Fauxmoir, Pinky Thinker Press, In Parentheses and elsewhere, and find her on Twitter @egsnyds.