What shall we call this twilight that shines with the first stars,
as if it had been there since the beginning?
Long nights touched with fire in featherlike flight—
turn after turn as ripples float over deep water.
Keys that open from the inside warm and bright
shut out the cold without shadow.

I do not know where to begin but all is not silent.
Notes ring their gentle song like drops streaming.

Before I turn away another crosses the sky,
the latest in a series continually kindling the dark,
vanishing and appearing, unfolding and surfacing
behind others like welcome banners or blossoms opening.

The years and the days through which we travel
are varied in quality, but these remarkable nights
in which light springs are full of grace.
On these beams I leap to another time and place
belonging to beauty and memory.

Tonight I am the child in wonder
gazing at the descent of stardust.
It is the dream that brought me here.

Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park