Now The Stars Hide

I grew up in the countryside

on a farm with the nearest

neighbor a quarter mile away.

Every night the stars shone,

unreachable precious jewels

adorning eternity—and I felt

very, very small and yet,

strangely, also very, very old

and more, oh so much more

than my daytime self drunk

on the petty and the mundane.

Now I live on a quarter acre

with neighbors on my left and

neighbors on my right and

neighbors across the street and

a big city so close it cloaks even

the light of night-born stars and

I am left only with the memory

of eternity….