The Star Above the House
There is a star above the house
that never seems to move,
though every year the others leave
and rearrange their rooms.
I tried to count them once at night,
but lost my place at ten.
By morning I had counted more,
so I began again.
The telescope says nothing strange
is happening at all.
The numbers fit the little chart.
The angles fit the wall.
Sometimes the star is hard to see.
I think the air is thin.
Sometimes I think it disappears,
then find it there again.
They say its light has travelled far,
so what I see is old.
Perhaps it left a thousand years
before the sky was cold.
I wonder if the star knows this,
or if it simply shines,
unaware of all the distant hands
that draw around its lines.
Last night I watched until the dawn
erased it from the blue.
The morning said the star was gone.
The morning was not true.