On Any Given Midnight

These stars will never shine so bright

as they do now. Our future lies

darker & lonelier every night.

Whatever fraction of delight

still flickers dimly in our eyes,

these stars will never shine so bright,

their galaxies in panicked flight

all vacating this scrap of sky

grown darker. Lonelier, every night.

I wish I may, I wish I might . . .

but what's as tedious as why

these stars will never shine so bright

as they once did. Blame physics' blight,

that energy its math implies.

Darker—read lonelier—every night,

our dreams hold less of hope than fright,

too drained of wonder to deny

these stars will never shine so bright.

Darker & lonelier, all our nights.