The Stars Used to Fall
Ryan Van Lenning is an author, ecotherapist, and inner and outer wilderness guide who lives in Humboldt, California. He is also a frequent finder and maker of beauty in wounded places. Here is one of his Eco-grief poems in honor of the dark-deprived sky.
The Stars Used to Fall
One of my favorite things about the mountains and desert is being with the silence of the black sky and a billion star siblings, a kin hid from us by modernity’s light and noise pollution. What treasures have fled from us in this “progress”? And what if they need us too?
The stars used to fall
into the eyes of the villagers
Back when the birds sang the morning up
like a welcome flood of a new day
and the town rejoiced
The stars used to fall
into the hearts of the villagers
Until The Machine came
and its son Power and daughter Speed
chased the stars away
and with them the hushed radiance
fled the town
You tell people about that time
and a flicker in the corner
of their jet brown eye utters
“I think I remember that”
But like a shooting star
it flares and burns out
and the stars in their quiet glowburn mystery
await the flame in the eyes and hearts
that will bring them back
Because they too miss being seen
and their silent star songs
miss being heard
across the lonely miles.
(One of 75 poems in Re-Membering: Poems of Earth and Soul)
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