Essential Thoughts for the Planet
Tonight I watch a lunar moth rise, its wings are dove grey,
and it leaves a mark on the face of the moon.
There’s beauty in this, since childhood’s end
this is my job, to find the tender connections
between ourselves, humanity, and the universe of stars.
Seeing, you see, I sit on the deck of my bridge,
shoulder to shoulder with it all; at the edge of night
I have the sky, faint streaks of light reach across
vast distances to my humblest of shorelines.
It’s all there from the beginning, the love and longing
passionate and sharp, the small contrails of rockets
that reached the planets, we found their moons
engaging and enlightening … remembering there’s
a million ways to greet the dark and wake up morning—
this details one of the better ones.
What beauty overhead, its luminous presence
begins with the knowledge that is essential to me,
it leaves its mark on my dreams.
Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park
