A Late Summer Night

The nights here, where I live, this far north,

can have a picture-postcard-ness to them:

the beauty of a clear sky, vast and moonless,

or perhaps, just a sliver of a moon lying there

resting atop the trees, and the sky,

punctuated by stars, is starlit, Orion’s

mythological cluster clearly visible there,

three stars aligned, aligned in the late summer sky;

and in that clearness, this stillness of night,

whispered sound carries, a lone loon calling out,

her sharp warble echoing, or the wind,

high this night, rustling the tree tops’ highest branches,

brushing clear the vastness; and the lake, its own vastness

stirred up by a north-western breeze blowing,

lapping the shore, slapping the stones there, wet and smooth,

is hushed, this cool breeze wrapping itself around me

even as I pull tight my coat against him,

standing here, staring upward and taking in the night,

the beauty of a clear sky, moonless, wrapped in wonder,

whispering,

                      hushed,

                                     starlit,

                                                  alone.