Sally Molini

 

After the Star Party

                                    Mount Wilson Observatory

The dome glows in the pines like a fallen moon,

announcing the last phase—

already I’ve stopped spinning

dim satellites or predictable cycles.

Guess it’s some kind of release,

being away, being here with the

middle of the night’s nebulous spirit,

this narrow ridge of tranquility

so far from home that troubles seem smaller,

as if distance were the answer.

Not much in the guest room

where I try to sleep: futon and table,

a mobile of sandalwood cranes

tipping their wings in scented air.

Bare walls, a floor so polished

even in the dark it reflects,

2 a.m. shadows spiraled in oak.

I wish my life were as simple as this room,

the mind made large and comfortable

by a few, wise choices.

Outside, a white gravel crescent leads

to the hundred inch where a star party

ended in a wet ring of cocktails—

glitter and idle talk plastered on metal walls,

the universe toasted as something to own.

Daily orbits dwarfed by Jupiter’s

vast descent, the celestial loom’s weave

of fire and air that has nothing to do with

what I hold onto—it’s all temporary anyway,

a kind of cluttered emptiness,

my own body mostly space,

another illusion conjured by atoms,

a stunning effect, like these cranes

turning in their token piece of sky.

I keep getting it backwards, always

falling for science over spirit,

matter over mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

Sally Molini’s work is has appeared in or is forthcoming in Best New Poets Anthology, 32 Poems, Tar River Poetry, Slipstream, Margie, and elsewhere. She holds the MFA from Warren Wilson College and lives in Omaha, Nebraska.