Desert Stars

Photo by Wally Pacholka

To Stars

With age, I've learned to watch my feet.
I've become cautious of falls,
the honest frailty of bones
and equally fragile, the choices
found at every crossroad.

Time makes us bend
We learn the habit
of looking down.

I was blessedly no where
just some where between
"here" and "there"
a truck stop off I-40
falling off the edge of the world
into a nameless desert town,

disappearing
into a sweet black halcyon midnight
After a summer rain

shining asphalt
the smell of diesel, and chaparral

(below,  some where between

my feet and eternity)

you made your puddled,

gracious descent:

luminous Orion,

and faithful Sirius,

the dog star.

Antares, the scorpion's tail,

the Pleiades
dancing in Indra's shining jewel net.

And the Big Dipper

offering,
offering forever