The Stars Are Out Tonight - Feb 4 2025

 

The Stars Are Out Tonight

Feb 4 2025

The stars are out tonight.

As if we’re alone in the universe

when it’s overcast.

As if daylight was anathema

to everything but us.

As if the moon, in shadow

had somehow gone.

Does object permanence

applied only on earth?

When I learned the sun was also a star

like every other

I felt both exhilarated

and humbled.

Exhilarated

at the vastness of the cosmos,

imagining all those points of light

to be of sun-like magnitude.

But humbled that our average star

isn’t special at all

and nowhere near forever;

for sure not indispensable

except to us.

Of course, one day the stars really will be out.

Extinguished,

so not even a cinder

of a burnt-out star remains

in a cold dark universe

that was stretched too thin.

But tonight, I gaze up in wonder

as my eyes adjust

and more stars appear.

Not a cloud.

No moon

dulling my vision

with reflected light.

Exhilarated

to feel so small.

To imagine the sun

as a tiny speck of light

at the end of a spiral arm

on the margin of a galaxy

that’s also merely a speck

in some one else's sky.