Light Pollution
I am starved of stars. My lungs are suffocated by the smog of artificial light that reflects from fluorescent signs, headlights and lamps shadowed behind shades. A haze lingers over the town; lights flicker in the night, signaling planes that travelled miles to traverse through the suburban, yet metro sky. It feels suffocated, the town. It's in a dome, covered with it's own atmosphere; a barrier between the stratosphere and light of stars that have long since died. The remnants of distant molecules, atoms and dust can't reach us, but the light, the light of thousands of blazing suns linger. They linger more than the light from those light bulbs, cell phone screens and streetlights. They are the companions, the patriots of the night, even there when our sun shines. They are familiar and strange, an acquaintance we long to know, but know enough to realize their names. They are visible, even to those who can't seem them, for they have been passed down in our cellular memory. Our ancestors gazed at them and their cells and DNA recognized them. And as they passed, they knew that to them they will return.
Night Sounds
The silence within the house echoes back the night sounds. There is a shift in the air, between the signaling of crickets and chirping of nightingales. A car cruising down the street occasionally slices through the symphony of night. A cat yowls, hissing at an unseen foe. It reminds one of the dangers within the dark, but not the comforts that also comes with the ever shrouding blanket. When it's dark you recall the sounds of the day; cicadas bay and children's laughter tinkle from their mouths to fall between blades of grass. A radio blasting rap echoes between the whooshing winds between cars as they speed on the thruway. However, at night everything is muted. There is a deep respect for all things at night. It is a respect for the unseen, the sleeping and the hunting, the silence in the noise and the orchestra that makes up the night.
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