Drifting into a siesta we hear the gentle waves
Sloshing next to us against the sheltered shore
While off in the distance the low roar of the surf
Crashes offshore beyond Guilligan’s Island.
For us that distant constant noise is familiar
Hearing the interstate highway traffic approach the GWB
About the same half mile away from us
As that white line of toppling crest we see now.
This is a lazy vacation afternoon
Remembering the morning’s explorations
Walking around in the tropical heat
Suddenly summer sun on pale skin.
Early morning trek across the salt flats
Seeking the stilts and plovers and sandpipers,
Then a hike in the dry heat along the coral rock shoreline
Seeing kestrels, warblers, iguanas and an oyster catcher there.
No New Jersey winter weather for us this week.
No foot of snow and arctic vortex deep freeze.
No daily bus commute through the Lincoln Tunnel
Just relaxing in the balmy breeze.
Another day we take the boat ride there
To see the Guilligan’s Island beach
A good time to wade the sandy bottom
Sparkling in the afternoon sun.
The mangroves are too dense to penetrate
And view the seaward side surf.
We stay on the sheltered side
Passing a pleasant hour.
Here there are shorebirds everywhere underfoot
Ruddy turnstones become as tame as pigeons
Squabbling over bread crumb handouts
Tossed their way by the beachgoers.
We know these migrant birds in the wild.
Who knew the winter tourists could turn them
From shoreline scavengers picking along the edge
To picnic table scroungers begging for baked goods.
* * *
We can see the Orion nebula in the sword or knee
Using our binoculars to scan below Orion’s belt
Relaxing on lounge chairs here
In the warm night air on the Caribbean coast.
We are near Guanica with the lights of Ponce to the East.
The neighbor’s spotlight filters through the fence
Lighting the leaves of the waterfront tree
In front of our Puerto Rican vacation rental.
Even so we can see so many stars
As our eyes adjust to the relative darkness
Compared to the bright glow of New York
That fills our night sky back home.
Most nights we are inside reading books.
Tonight we are reading the sky.
We see a satellite streak past
And some time later see another.
Someday soon we want to go the Nevada desert
Into the darkest night to see the brightest stars
With the Milky Way arched over us
Viewing the myriad twinkling points of light.
We laugh to consider such name for our galaxy
Given before anyone realized what it is
When the night sky was a mythical theater
Before electric lights blinded us.
* * *
Again the next night we gaze at Orion
With the red star Betelgeuse for his head or shoulder
And at Gemini nearby and at all the stars
In that part of the sky there again as constants.
In ancient times through careful observation
The constant night sky background revealed
Those few wandering stars among the constellations
Before anyone knew the planets in our solar system.
In modern times that science of astronomy
Posits a sudden stupendous inflation
Some 13.7 billion years ago, followed
By this expanding universe with its red shift.
But city dwellers never see that sky that began it all
And we are almost all city dwellers now.
If you are born today you do not know
What everyone saw a hundred years ago.
And we still mostly invent a cosmology
Where the universe is filled with unseen dark matter
And we call it a cloud stretching out into spaghetti
Being pulled into the black hole central to our galaxy.
Back home the winter night sky is pink
Low clouds over the snow cover reflecting back
The web of lights we see coming in to land
Arriving back in the frozen time.
