Wordsmith Wednesday: Into the Stars

This Wednesday, we have three poems that explore the feelings of stargazing with someone. Whether it's comfortable awe for both the sky and the stargazing companion, quiet nostalgia for a summer meteor shower, or the stars witnessing all the highs and lows of a relationship, some of our most intense emotions can only be contained by the sparkling vastness above us. 

Feelings about the stars are as numerous as the stars themselves. Let’s look at three of those lovely little dots in the sky from Faris, Sophie, and Joeleen!

The Wonders of the Night

by Faris R. Weiss

Here we are, on the back deck

Enjoying the moonlight sky

Seeing stars as distant specks

As time passes right on by

There’s constellations I can spot

Though none of them I can name

So many to count, it’s quite a lot

As no two feel the same

The colors are so sublime

With the sky’s alluring navy blue

As the wind causes bells to chime

I feel my joy come back anew

The fun I have just looking up

It’s something that’s unique

The world amazement just fills my cup

As the fauna begin to speak

It’s so beautiful it’s so pristine

As many things grace our view

But yet there’s something prettier to be seen

And that something is you

You’re more gorgeous than the stars

As your beauty is in my sight

Prettier than Venus, Neptune and Mars

Better than the wonders of the night

Watching

by Sophie Lorraine Smith

Inspired by Jet by Tony Hoagland

there was some old dock we lay on silently watching the Perseids I think and we knew they’d come just not exactly when or where so we had to keep a keen and nimble eye and stay out there long enough that we’d get lucky eventually but that made seeing them even more special like we caught it in our hands out there on that old dock on that silent lake in those tall woods in that dark calm murmuring night

doesn’t feel like summer, I say, not without all the watermelon and swimming in the lake and s’mores and meteor showers, feels more like a few empty months and I don’t mind that but it isn’t summer

maybe, I wonder to myself in those long hours unsleeping in bed, it doesn’t feel like summer without all the laughter and the big music with everybody singing along 

in my fevered imaginings I can’t help but hope that

there will be some old porch we sit on silently listening to the distant cars I think and our own voices too telling secrets weaving through the stories of our lives and nothing will matter quite so much because there’ll be nothing at all beyond the streetlights we’ll be adrift out there on that old porch in front of that sleeping house in that little neighborhood in that cool gentle familiar night

just watching the dark

Star-Crossed

by Joeleen Morrison 

I have always loved the stars.

Since I was young, I spent every night gazing up at the beautiful view.

I loved the way the stars light paths in the dark void of sky; how they seemed to dance together in the warm glow of moonlight.

As I grew older, I wished to share this love with another. I wanted someone to dance with me in the moon's glow like we were just two binary stars.

The stars had always felt like my home. I wanted to open the door for someone to love them as much as I did.

When I fell in love with you, I hoped the stars would be there to catch the pieces of my broken heart.

I didn't expect you to love me too. 

I never told you how I thanked the stars that night. How I thanked the moon for sending a star to orbit the one in my chest. Our hearts had fallen into a dance that would rival the stars themselves.

You used to say that you'd take me into those mountains of your hometown so we could sleep under the stars together. 

I used to picture how the stars could only ever look more beautiful if they were reflected in your gaze.

But I suppose I'll never truly know how you look under those stars. We never crossed that distance. Our stars fell out of orbit before the dance could reach its crescendo. 

I have always loved the stars. I thought I would always love you. 

But I'm learning how to feel at home again without your orbit. I'm learning how to dance to my own rhythm again. 

With every star crossing the sky, with every new phase of the moon, 

I'm learning how to stargaze without thinking of you.

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