Stargazers

c. 16,500bc
the night hunter shook him
tossed him to land numb
looking up into the black sky
the swath of stars and shadows
a blanket framing that face
with ivory bared
to the space beyond

106bc
blood dripped from a blade
falling to the churned field
as dusk turns into night
he looked up, wary of the few
still moving around him
numb to their cries, a death rattle
looking up, he wondered if the Gods
woven into the stars looked down
and wondered upon him
as he did they

1053ad
the smell of the burning fortress and flesh
with the cries of the wounded rose
as he stirred in the muck
looking up into the sky
"please take me," he beseeched
in the language of his mother
as his life drained out
from wounds into the soil
not the stars

1918
acrid nitrates rankled the air
gunshots popping near and far
fewer now in the night
or the trench
overrun by Pershing's men
wishing the stars above
could take them home

1986
the desert had taken his water
and drained him after the bomb
destroyed his jeep and killed
the other soldiers
the night, its merciless glittering
comforted him
with a blanket of stars
that he fades into

2056
power was low but worse
the oxygen
how they hated the stars
their last adventure
above, or was it below? the great blue
mocked, contaminated and unsafe
while the stars -- enveloping -- flickered
with the irony of having no place
to return to.