We imagine that each year the Perseids come to us
so we lie on the lawn and gaze upward,
wrapped in a quilt, to the delight of the dogs
who believe we’ve come there just to be with them,
and the mosquitoes who come to snack.
We imagine the arc lights of the meteors are stars falling
as we strip off our clothes and step carefully from rock to rock
along the inky river. We slide into a mountain hot springs
feeling timeless and slightly boiled until the surge of freezing river reminds us we’re still very much human.
We imagine that somewhere in that dark expanse
there’s the answer to it “all” and that perhaps, if we watch
it’ll be written in a silent string of light across the night
and we’ll go back inside to be warmer, and wiser,
having seen the annual truth that came from somewhere to us.
But it is I who must make the journey,
who riding sempiternal, must travel the distance each year, each lifetime, back to the same mystery I already worshipped
in awe, and wonder once again what it is
and if it was worth the trip.
Published in “Abyss & Apex” 2013
from the collection “One Coyote Winter“
