of nights and stars and starry nights

it’s always night somewhere

it’s still dark outside.

night always is.

This really has nothing to do with van Gogh. Or maybe it does.

random moments under stars
(inspired by the music of David Tolk)


beneath the starry night, 
	this world, like all worlds,
	continues its rotations
	within the dark enfoldment
	of heavy silence,
		and black womb. 

and…

beneath the starry night,
	i ride upon that world
	thinking 
	and misbelieving
	it rotates only 
		about me. 

			i laugh embarrassed when i am proved otherwise.
			(and every night I am proved otherwise)

because…

beneath the starry night,
	human and more-than human
	will seek rest
	just as many others stir—
	for some the end of their day,
	others the start of their night. 
		for both the human and the more-than. 

beneath the starry night,
	an elder someone will take her last breath 
	at the same moment a newborn someone
	takes his first, 
	just like during last night’s starry night
	and the one before that. 
		and the one tomorrow.

beneath the starry night,
	a person will still be questioned 
	because of the color of his skin,
	while the questioner denies he’s asking 
	because of the color of his skin. 
	it seems like this won’t change either. 
		or ever. 

beneath the starry night,
	incomprehensible joy will be felt by an entire people
	in ways they could not even imagine;
	while a whole other people will experience 
	and perpetrate
	an evil that not even the worst of us wants to imagine,
		despite our history of having seen all this before.

			we have seen all this before. 

beneath the starry night, 
	justice and injustice will be served likewise 
	by the same humans, 
		(us), 
	who only want to love their loved ones
	and come home to them to eat common bread at a common table
	and to read bedtime stories to their children, 
		after hugs.

beneath the starry night…

	new stories will be written, 
		old ones erased;
	new life discovered,
		existing lives allowed to go extinct without our notice,
			(but some with);
	new trees planted,
		entire forests cut down 
			(for what again?);
	new storms to wreak havoc,
		old ones forgotten as if they too were extinct; 
	new loves to be tested,
		existing love to be tested all over again. 

and too…

	hopes will be raised just as prayers will be raised,
		that there be peace on earth or other some such folly.
			finally.
	but tomorrow the same hopes will need to be hoped,
		and the same prayers prayed. 
			because last night we hoped and prayed for the same. 

beneath the starry night,
	the world continues its rotations
	and we continue to ride upon it
	unknowingly oblivious 
	to the true miracle that we are,
		that life is.     

	all this will happen,
		and more. 
	so much more that we can’t know and won’t know
	even as we know so much and have learned so much
		beneath these starry nights everywhere. 

			it’s never just about me.

but beneath this starry night, 
the grief of it will be realized:
we cannot get this one starry night back.

so the question persists though it goes unheard
	in the dark enfoldment of this heavy silence,
	and this black womb:
		how will you give birth to yourself
			and choose to live 
				beneath 
					this 
						one 
							starry 
		
			night?

---

The words above came while listening to this:

Haunting.

So, yes, Night always is. And each of us brings the light—trouble is, the light is locked within our hearts, which must be broken open to shine the way.

And that can hurt.

---

Live, Laugh, and Love,

~ k

Always and Ubuntu.

🙏🏼

PS: In case you wanted yourself some Don McLean (but this had nothing to do with him either—I don’t think.):