Friends

.
under stars in wicker chairs
galaxy sparks have reached us,

those and the spare, streaked flash of
meteors in August. The Milky Way,

its dust, its mobs of crowded suns
with elbow rooms of light years

disappear behind the house roof south
and trees north over a neighbor’s garden,

smudge-like swaths of light
in this billion-year backward gaze

which left home young, now after eons
still spark and blaze for this
lit circle of friends
.
by Jim Culleny
8/13/12