Day 415

When night falls, unending night
of winter, you tell everyone you love
goodbye:  those already asleep in the tent with you,
those sheltering elsewhere, those
who have been killed, who have starved,
who have been burned alive.  You look out
through the dust, the contaminated air,
through the darkness of your own spirit,
and you see the one star that is shining.
There in the moonless sky it pierces
the unrelenting dark, sends forth its light
to you where you are.  Across vastness,
across aeons, across narratives
of destruction, it remains. Never forget this,
it tells you.  I am here even when daylight 
and consciousness obscure me.