Star Watch

September 8, 1997

My husband is learning the stars.
Each night it is clear he goes out
to review the east, its promises
he catches above the fence.
Through the year he follows
that slow wheel
studied for centuries at Stonehenge;
by the Mayas; and now here,
in a hollow of yard rimmed
by trees - black limbs raised
to receive like rain
those fierce, glimmering traces
of old time.