Dark Sky

image by Brad Mann

For my son David who voiced the analogy

Part 1

Long long ago in the dark dark sky
our ancestors saw stars, yes,
flashes of light from afar
that let the people know their place.
Dark Sky, return, return.

Now we try to unpollute the sky
but our electric imprint
is still growing, still taking
away the stars, taking away
the celestial beings who whirl with us.

Not taking from space but
stealing from our vision,
hungry for infinity and mystery.
How can we believe our place
if we cannot see the stars?

How we turn on ourselves
when we do not know our place.
How we forget the fit
and become myopic.
Dark Sky, return, return.

It’s impossible to remember
what during our daily lives
stays invisible to our eyes.
Dark Sky in its soft rare places
bids us grow
into right belonging.

Part 2

And death the same.
What is beyond the gate –
every living day, concealed,
unnoticed, ghostly.
You can write books about it,
you can train
to be a death doula.

You can do Atisha’s
Nine Contemplations, and practice
your last breath every morning.
But only the dying
will open your eyes
to the realms that
have always been there.

The shining bright of physical life
skews our vision to the senses
too densely intense to see through.
It keeps the other dimensions
unseeable, until the quickening when
the curtain lifts and Dark Sky earthy days
open into ever.

©Susa Silvermarie 2026
www.darksky.org

image by Guillaume Le Louarn

image by Nathan Anderson