Even when the night air’s still
the sky and all that fills it will
not merely be, but twinkle, writhe, and wink.
One such night without a breeze
I camped by a lake enclosed by trees
and, staring at it, knew not what to think:
In the lake, the low and innocent
had seemed to swallow the firmament—
the moon herself and every constellation—
as if each being in the sky
with all its aches, as well as I,
had accepted a humble invitation
by cloning itself, then sent the clone
so the lake would not be so alone.
Alone, unseen, I suddenly stripped and dove
and, holding my breath, diving deeper yet,
I felt, with the darkness and the wet,
a tingle. Call it “universal love.”
When later I was drying in
the moonlight, I observed how my skin
wore a thousand starlit sequins—from the dive—
and, panting, came to realize
a secret of the still night skies:
That stars don’t only twinkle, writhe
and wink, but, with our mindless, blithe
emergences, will breathe, as if alive.
James B. Nicola, a returning contributor, is the author of six collections of poetry, the latest being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense. His decades of working in the theater culminated in the nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award.