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)