My Mountain.

I went up to my mountain to look at my stars.

Each blazing sun a tiny pinprick of light.

Every one sitting, just where it belongs.

Grains of shining sand, suspended in the velvet empty.

Closing my eyes, my fingers trace the lines.

Constellation to constallation. Virgo, Leo, Pisces.

Midnight to Dawn.  Autumn to Summer.

A mobil suspended just beyond reach.

A map of where I stand on our shining sapphire sphere.

So I went out on the heath.

I walked to the edge of the forest canopy.

Then I wandered the shores of an unfamiliar lake.

And I went up another mountain, to look for my stars.

Orion, four inches from where he belongs

Counting by finger lengths from the horizon.

At the edge of sunset. An hour before dawn

He rides high in a sky that is not my own.

But I remember. More familiar than words

Knit closer to my soul than the smell of the pine air on my mountain

My mountain where I go up to look at my stars.

On nights when the air is colder and clearer than ice.

Each blazing sun. Each tiny pinprick, right where it ought to be.

But here, with the desert air dry as a bone.

The tiny pinpricks, line tracing to line of Taurus' flickering face,

It is mobil map of how far I am from home