Star-Gazer

Forty-two years ago (to me if to no one else

The number is of some interest) it was a brilliant starry night

And the westward train was empty and had no corridors

So darting from side to side I could catch the unwonted sight

Of those almost intolerably bright

Holes, punched in the sky, which excited me partly because

Of their Latin names and partly because I had read in the textbooks

How very far off they were, it seemed their light

Had left them (some at least) long years before I was.

And this remembering now I mark that what

Light was leaving some of them at least then,

Forty-two years ago, will never arrive

In time for me to catch it, which light when

It does get here may find that there is not

Anyone left alive

To run from side to side in a late night train

Admiring it and adding noughts in vain.