skip to Main Content

Per Diem Archive: A. Burns August 2012, Stars

Out for Stars -- "I was out for stars; / I would not come in. / I meant not even if asked; / And I hadn't been." From Robert Frost, "Come In". After sunset the cosmos comes out, star by star by stars. Perhaps a few planets wander among them, Saturn now doubling Spica in the West. Perhaps meteors will, in Loren Eiseley's classic phrase, "whisper greenly overhead." It's a humbling drama, the scale of it. No fancy optics are required. "That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest," Thoreau observes. A cheap notebook may prove a handy accessory. Venus has entered the Pleiades. The galaxy is breathing. Ueda defines sabi as "the concept that one attains perfect spiritual serenity by immersing oneself in the egoless, impersonal life of nature. The complete absorption of one's petty ego into the vast, powerful magnificent universe." If you don't come in too soon, a haiku may lodge where out there is also in here. Thoreau again: "The stars are the apexes of what triangles!" Even in daylight, a reader can complete the triangles of these celestial-themed haiku.

[back]
Author: Chad Lee Robinson
the Big Dipper—
rows of corn connect
farm to farm
Author: Carolyn Hall
starless night
the first bite
of black bread
Author: Nick Avis
northern lights shimmer
     a saw-whet piping
     on the distant shore
Author: John Barlow
nightfall
a woodcock belts between
Betelgeuse and Rigel
Author: Jack Barry
entering Perseids
barred owl fledglings
beg to be fed
Author: Jack Barry
your cold hands
those first stars
were already there
Author: Cherie Hunter Day
desert chill
the ocotillo’s long reach
to the stars
Author: Mike Dillon
the old oak
that filled our summer
filled with stars
Author: Bruce H. Feingold
moonless night—
my reclusive neighbor
points out Jupiter
Author: Stanford M. Forrester
backyard fireflies . . .
    each moment
        a different constellation
Author: D. Claire Gallagher
a smear of stars
from horizon to horizon—
the loon’s necklace
Author: Lee Gurga
rising
to urinate
the dog star
Author: Christopher Herold
shooting star—
abruptly the campfire
rekindles itself
Author: Gary Hotham
letting
the dog out—
the stars out
Author: Jim Kacian
long view to Sirius even the past isn’t past
Author: Jim Kacian
night clouds gone the supply of infinity
Author: Deborah P Kolodji
leonids—
the sparkle
in her laugh
Author: paul m. (Paul Miller)
deep winter
stars between the stars
I know
Author: Tomislav Maretić
walking the dogs
over the snowy fields
Orion
Author: Michael McClintock
look it’s clear
to Saturn
Author: Ron C. Moss
starry night . . .
what’s left of my life
is enough
Author: Marian Olson
stars
        before letting go
letting go
Author: Christopher Patchel
nightly news
then
the north star
Author: Raymond Roseliep
he removes his glove
       to point out
                           Orion
Author: Philip Rowland
starry night i
break into a run
Author: Martin Shea
tide’s far sound . . .
the stars have come in again
to lie among the stones
Author: Martin Shea
part of the galaxy
has gone into the dip
and veer of the sea
Author: Wally Swist
far into twilight
milkweed seeds cross the meadow—
the evening star
Author: Dietmar Tauchner
strange voices
I open the door
to the stars
Author: Dietmar Tauchner
alone in the bedroom window venus
Author: vincent tripi
The evening star . . .
     our flower-viewing faces
          begin to change
[back]
Back To Top