Member Poem

Tonight’s sky seems flat,
it could be an expanse with no shape at all.
Perception, they say, is everything.

I step outside in the dark,
see Venus and Jupiter, mistake them
as stars. Why not? What mass can I assign
to a paper-thin crescent glowing
phantasmal yellow-white,
or to its neighbors, bright, circular specks?

Heavenly bodies we call them,
as if knowing their figure: globe,
sphere, some kind of body-at-all.
Things change form and orientation to each other—
like landscape and weather with seasons.

So, too, the moon: harvest-time, slung heavy
and low to horizon, a large orangey circle aglow.
That very night it will alter itself,
float higher up, shrink,
become washed out and wan.
And what we call phases! A month’s patience
can follow a crescent to full-bellied and back.

We apply theories—
fundamental motion and spin,
work instruments, measure angles,
plot points to chart out the math—
but what I see tonight,
a sickle moon and two stars—
look like phosphorous cutouts pasted to sky.
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