The stars are fading
Dimmed by the incandescence
Of city lights
I’ve spent my life searching
The night skies for heavenly signs
A firedrake, the star of a New King,
Narrowing my eyes to see
Faint silver pinpricks: Cassiopeia, Pleiades
Not a radiant filigree of marquisate
Remembered from childhood gazes
How can we build stone circles
Without the constellations
A memorial to the heavens
Unknowable mysteries for
Future generations to ponder
I rue that I cannot bear witness
To the cosmic light
I long for the illumination of
A primitive darkness