Sleeping Outside
Aug 16 2023
The kind of sultry summer night
you sleep outside
and hope the bugs aren't bad.
Where even a fitful breeze
affords a little relief
from the hot confined interior.
They thrive here
— blackflies in June, mosquitoes in July,
deer flies, horseflies
cursed ankle biters —
but August is delightful.
So on a moonless night
we lie on our backs, looking up at the sky
and watch star after star
materialize out of the darkness,
peering
ever deeper into space,
peeling back the layers
of cosmological time.
I console myself
that so many bugs
means nature here is thriving
the landscape is lush.
That I can spare a little blood
for the greater good.
Because who knows
what worlds there are
around those myriad stars.
Does life exist
outside our orbit?
Or could this be it,
our small blue and green planet
a precious island of life
in an impassable sea
of inanimate matter?
Those damned mosquitoes
as singular as us.
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