Everything seems to be gray,
hazy in the waning light
of a dwindling Summer sky.
The stars barely outlined
dangle precariously,
covered-over by a milky film.
I wonder where they all are?
My Nana, my Aunt Anita,
my mother's mother
who died of tuberculosis
when my mother was just seven.
Do they continue to shine? Brighter
and brighter...in that other place
where my eyes are covered over
by the opaque veil that separates
the dead from the realm of the living.
How dim the stars can seem at times;
yet, at dusk, they become visible
as the clouded-lens is torn away
and the stars have had layers of time
peeled away to reveal their iridescence.
These are the stars that glimmer and shine
with a growing intensity as the night skies
deepen and pool into expansive black sheets.
I understand then...where all those
who live beyond the veil are.
They are the stars who grow
so much brighter with each passing century
of the Eternal, and look down upon us
with a florescent glow. Just as
the first, full burst of stars
become visible on the last trace
of a Summer sky, in the evening
of the final setting of the Sun.
At Dawn, they slowly fade and become
part of the opaque light of day.
They are behind the veil, once again.
Still bright and ever gleaming,
even when I can no longer see
their familiar shapes and forms
nor the radiance that the stars keep
in the daylight of their bright, Forever.
I wrote this just before President Reagan passed away.
But, somehow, it seems fitting for this event and for
the many loved ones that are there waiting to greet us.
