Last night we lay under the stars with a map

and a flashlight, the lake beside us

reflecting passages we found in the sky.

Named by the Phoenicians-Draco the dragon,

the Dippers, and the shifting pole star, Thuban,

the pyramid builders used to orient their stones.

And someone said the fires we see up there

could be the light still travelling from stars

dead for thousands of years, finding our eyes only now.

 

I feel closer to the dead ones floating on the creek

        I paddle on this morning.

 

Those fallen stars that wake up as waterlilies,

the chosen ones, their afterlives burning white

in this dark pool. Such poise

after their long fall and burnout.

        For the damselflies

        and choirs of frogs they bloom,

        they live in the tiny currents

        spun by the sunfish and perch swimming below.

 

And I am here before the Phoenicians,

drifting among these fallen stars

that do not play tricks on me with time and light.

I find no constellations here,

do not whisper names to the white fires.

I follow the kingfisher downstream

to the lake where the lilies don’t grow.

>> LYNN DAVIES BIO