– 12 –

My Mother Looking at Stars

Each morning in the small hours
my mother pads from bed and back
with a pause for stargazing.

Her body wakes her. The stars watch her.
What connects them: this she puzzles
and finds pleasure in no answer

but three elements: flesh, spirit
and steely starlight. I count
she thinks, because I am aware

and care to look at stars for a moment
allowing them to wake me, more than
my body does, being a craft

merely. While their gaze judges
with benignity the watcher of the watchers.
I am close to stars in the night.