Member Poem

Out of the chain store, on his homeward stroll
beneath the night sky’s scintillating bowl,
he glances up at points smaller than peas:
Jupiter rising up above the trees;
Venus descending toward the western skyline,
leashed to the sun like a defiant canine;
and higher, Cygnus (yes, the fabled swan),
and the Summer Triangle. The rest are gone.
He can’t descry the immense Milky Way.
Most constellations hide. Scarcely a ray
of cosmic light can ever hope to make it.
A strange thought floats around. He cannot shake it:
Once gazing, awed, at the glittering cloths of heaven,
we’re moths now, drawn to the glow of 7-Eleven.