Night Skies

I used to look up in wonder
At the sparkly white things in the night sky
They were all stars, that place that was Heaven
And then time began to roll by

They became constellations, named for things that we knew
The bear, the scorpion, even someone’s belt
The learning had begun and the science was fun
But it was changing how I felt

To the child, they didn’t seem that far away
If I was tall enough, I could touch them
And counting them wasn’t easy, but it could be done
All the stars over my house in one big sum

But the adult now knows that they’re not close by
And they’re not just over my home
They’re all around us, everywhere
No matter where and how we roam

With the years, our universe gets bigger
With the years, our knowledge has grown
And we’ve learned that we’re miniscule compared to it all
And there’s still so much yet unknown

Yet I still look in wonder at the night sky
At the planets and suns I now know are there
And the novae and the quarks all disappear
To the child without knowledge or care

Lauren Swartzmiller
© 2012