December 22, 1999
My friend, this solstice moon reminds me to look up at the sky —
The brightest moon in a hundred years, they say, but right now I
Can't see the features I like best for all this blinding light:
The things my father taught to me on moonless winter nights,
When we would walk up to Clifton Park (where summers I played ball)
And peer at the deep of space to find the Dippers large and small,
The twins, the bull, Orion's Belt, but most of all the Queen's Chair,
My favorite since harder to find and closer to my scale
And the scale of my father's love. My eye pursues it still
Among the million numberless stars — the stars that I feel will,
Fighting distance, connect me to you, to my passed father's life,
To the numberless millions who lived on earth before my time,
To the numberless more who'll live here once I'm gone — or who may,
For all I know, not live here at all but venture out away
Into space, expand the home of man. For them the stars will be
Their park (will they play with comets as I played ball?) — yet I see
In my mind's eye that sometimes they'll look back at where the earth must lie
And feel as I do when, thinking of you, I look up at the sky.