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Notes About The Poem

This poem transitions from twilight to late night as a quiet backyard ritual, and elevates a simple act of stargazing into a profound cosmic voyage.

Midnight Voyage

The house grows still as day begins to fade,
Drowning in pools of long and dusky shade.
I keep my vigil while the embers die,
A patient shadow under twilight’s eye,
Waiting until the bruised, receding light
Surrenders to the majesty of night.

Down through the hall I tread a quiet track,
A thick, heavy blanket on my back,
Woven for warmth, soft wool of amber grain,
To navigate this grassy, cool domain.
I carry it into the backyard air,
Where dusk has set its cool and misty snare,
And spread its gentle weight across the lawn,
A tether till the coming of the dawn.

I stretch out flat upon the cushioned yard,
With the cool covered earth, soft, but hard.
The lawn becomes an ocean, shadow-deep,
Where daytime memories lay down to sleep,
And high above, the night opened wide
Into a reverse abyss, on my blanket I ride.

Then comes the spark, the silent, blinding bloom:
Silver pinpricks piercing through the gloom.
Ancient fires, suspended in the frost,
Whisper forgotten secrets to the lost.
Among the motionless and timeless spheres,
A fleet of modern iron astrolabe appears.
Satellites, like ghost-ships forged of glass,
Tacking through vacuum currents as they pass.

And other phantoms dance across the dome:
Erratics, tumbling through their stellar home,
Motes of cosmic dust that glance and skip,
Fireflies that break the dark, then slip.
A streak of chalk across a slate of night,
A sudden flash, a ricochet of light,
Bouncing like polished stones on polished glass
Before they fade and into shadow pass.

Anchorless, I float upon my raft,
Swept up in midnight’s quiet, dizzying craft,
A solitary watchman of the deep,
While all the world below lies fast asleep.
…. all the world below lies fast asleep.

earthnaturenightstarsuniverserhyme

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