. . . the stars were incredible, some of the best I have ever seen, especially
the last night after the party, when we laid out on the tennis court until 2 am --
perfect seeing, no moon.
I found the National Audobon Society's Field Guide to the Night Sky at the used
bookstore in town. I used to be so mystified by the constellations, but that book
made it very easy to conceptualize & pick them out of the night sky. If I had had
a few more nights there I could have found more dim star clusters, nebulae, distant
galaxies -- but I could only find one or two new things per night, and we could only
look to the southeastern skies, away from the lights of the house.
A long weekend is criminally short, so I can only prepare myself for my next time under
the cosmos, which unfortunately may be a long time yet. If there is one thing I detest
about living in NYC -- there are a couple, but the foremost thing -- is how
astronomically far away I feel from the night sky, which in all other phases
of my life has been only a short drive away. I miss the RPI observatory, I miss
Grafton Lake, I miss the neighborhood under construction & not yet wired out on
TX-71, I miss the comet hanging over Balcones Canyonlands, I miss my telescope
in my backyard as a kid, looking at Jupiter's moons. I miss the eras of my life
when the night sky was dominant, when I spent hours under it totally alone in
perfect quiet, unnoticed & unaccounted for by anyone, driven into the ground by
its vastness like a nail beneath a hammer, like a seed into loam, nourished &
spreading roots. When the highest thing you can see is a rooftop, the world becomes
much smaller, and people seem unnaturally large.
One night walking through the field from Hoosick Street to my apartment at
Stacwyck, perfectly clear, I passed into the woods looking skyward, only
noticing I had entered them by the black silhouettes of branches projected
like fingers on the midnight, mesmerized, until I heard a loud snap right
in front of me -- I froze, & for a long moment, under starlight, leaning
on our night vision, me & the doe tried to figure each other out.