I lay down in the grass tonight, wondering why a cloud covers most all stars from sight, hiding the joyous crowd. Pines bow down to whisper, their arched backs bend like hills and tell me of a time and place where stars bloomed like daffodils. A star’s light small but full of life sparkles behind the trees and I realize there’s no cloud in sight, only the weeping breeze. I focus my eyes and wish for a sky when stars would shine and dance against the pocked ozone in never ending line. I wonder where the stars have gone, what made them fade away and what Wordsworth not long ago had seen along the foaming bay. I have to squint for dimming stars once blinding at a glance, what effect does human life have on their fading dance? As humans manufacture cars and send waste down the bay, they spew smoke onto stars who turn from sparkling white to gray. People traded starlight for light bulbs and purple LEDs; I wonder if the Romantics would miss their otherworldly company. As I search my sky for dying light from long-gone stars I've thought, "what would I see in the sky if not for destruction humanity brought?" In the grass I close my eyes and imagine I have come to lie under the sprightly, sparkling performance of the Milky Way’s eye. Stars explode and sway and leap towards me in excited mood, they kiss my eyes and grasp my hands and rip me from my solitude. Light upon my own skin shines, and warms me as my mind is filled with stars trading polluted earth for skies like fields of daffodils.
