Nocturnal Geometry

Photo by Eileen Davis

Inverted bowl of blackish blue 

Over rural acute-angled roofs, 

Girls giggle, bouncing on canvas circle. 

Then circumference springs support reclined friends 

Musing of sacred mysteries. 

Soon we slumber under Perseus’s protection.

- ---

Under beams of immortal moon, 

Westward of any plotted town, 

Youth leaders guide my eyes 

Through magnified lenses 

Upon reflective rocks, 

Cratered orbs, clouded globes, 

Dusted iced rock ovals-- 

Mere mirrors of superior suns. 

----

Under shroud of bluish black

Adjacent steepled spaces,

Sacred silence encompasses.

My gaze reaches Orion’s belt.

Unlike Orion who hunted beasts,

We’d hunted, nay gathered, ancestors home,

Mortals to achieve immortal mansions.

----

Like spilled milk across dark granite top, 

Within wire perimeters,

Feet sink in the grass,

My finger aims to Polaris

Guiding my son's eyes above.

Two dippers stream celestial serene, 

Intersect upon our axis.

----

Beneath sky's stalactites

Over suburban pentagonal homes 

Lighted linear paths, darkened rectangle yards 

My house obscured; no lights left on. 

Two perched on back porch steps. 

Warm wind brushes over our squared legs; 

Two entwined hands triangulate. 

As one outstretched grasp, 

our corporeal compass circumscribes 

Charted pinpoints, like glimmering glass fragments, 

Pressed upon a mosaic map. 

I capture the moments throughout my life where I have gazed at the stars and been infused with God's love. I refer to a sleepover, stargazing at a Young Women's activity, looking at Orion's belt after doing baptisms for the dead in the Monticello Latter-day Saint temple, and stargazing with my sons and my husband.