Under stars in late October cold
you asked, if stars are suns,
why is ours much bigger than the rest.
I said, because they’re far away.
As far away as Grammy’s house, you asked.
Farther still, I said, much farther.
Where is Grammy now, you asked.
Her body’s in the ground, I said,
but maybe what she really was
is up there somewhere shining down
like starlight you and I feel
all around us on a night like this.
You stood in silence for a while,
gazing up, one thoughtful hand
resting lightly on my shoulder,
one stretched out and turned palm up
as if to catch the starlight.
Then you said, almost singing,
what a pretty feeling
to be a little star,
white, and beautiful.
I could feel the whole heart of you
lifting dreams beyond the reach
of earthbound limitations and I
love you more than you will know
until I’m starlight and you understand
how each of us needs little stars
to lift our dreams beyond ourselves,
and I was hers, and you were mine.
“Star Light, Star Bright” from W.D. Ehrhart, Beautiful Wreckage: New and Selected Poems (Adastra Press, 1999).