Nocturne

For I am every dead thing.
John Donne, “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day”

December night. Meteors streak
through the bare crowns of oaks.

I watch the sky as if it were the sleeping face of a dreamer.
All that blazing action without a sound!

And the longer I look, the more unfamiliar it becomes,
wholly itself & yet possessed. Wild. Vulnerable.

I want to be present the way an oak is present
& stretch empty arms into the void.