Things Like Light
by Martine Stephens

Your obituary said you loved the stars
but it did not say why
or how we stood when we were young
clutching silver flashlights
in the backyard long past bedtime
shining the narrow beams upward
hoping some child on some distant world
would signal back.
Together we set up an old telescope
and watched eclipses of the moon,
mapped the constellations,
tried to read messages in the patterns
we searched for, dreamed of
ways to escape the earth and fly.
We did not know then how light
diffuses with distance into memory,
but the last night we spoke you told me
you could see the rings of Saturn
through your new telescope,
and we talked about things like light
that change when we measure them
just because we're there,
how the particles shift and bend
with time, pressure, gravity,
and we remembered our desire to find
a way for us to travel
somewhere we were lighter,
like the moon, or Saturn's rings.

Please send us your comments, including the name of the work you are commenting on.

Copyright © 1999-2003 by Amarillo Bay. All rights reserved.
Individual works are copyrighted by their authors.