The mystical beauty of the moon and clouds the other night got me to thinking, as I admittedly do so often, about the ephemeral and ethereal qualities of our species and the strangeness of our even existing. When Space looms so visibly vast over us and insists on reminding me how tiny and potentially insignificant I am, my life is, in the grand scheme of it all, I begin to have exactly the opposite reaction any sensible person might assume I would have. I think that, just possibly, if there can be no logic or extravagant purpose evident for the creation and continuation of our peculiar and oddball race, then we can’t have just appeared at random or even serendipitously–we must really have arrived here with at least some intended point. Being a thoroughly sideways creature myself in so many ways right from the start, I find it comforting to imagine that the very impossibility if explaining my reason for existing seems to argue for some small purpose. Foolish dream or actual conundrum, it makes stargazing that much more attractive on nights like these….
Tag Archives: Night sky
Magical Night & Mystic Day
One night I stood upon the green
And every nightingale a-wing
Stopped in the linden trees to sing,
A perfect choir though all unseen,
Encircling in the meadow’s crown—
Night-blooming flowers ‘round my feet
Reflected moonglow, and their sweet,
Sweet breath rose up as stars fell down
In meteor showers to earth because
Its beauty was so great, so dear,
They longed to draw the night sky near
To all this peacefulness that was—
And while I stood upon that lawn,
Aching with joy, with ecstasy
As sharp as ice and flame in me,
I woke full wide, and it was dawn.
The day that came up in that place
Made all the green-wood hum and quake
With quivering for pleasure’s sake,
At seeing the full sun’s clear face,
Yet, basking in the softest fall
Of constant rain, as mist, to fly
In colored arcs across the sky
And shower prisms on us all—
The birds of day joined in that hymn
And coaxed the foxes to the green,
Contented beasts not often seen
In sun, and as I stood, a slim
Grey foal came, too, and nine or ten
Of rabbits, and the beasts all danced,
And I stood still, transfixed—entranced—

