Catherine Phil MacCarthy goes stargazing – and philosophising – in this poem from her new collection, The Invisible Threshold, published by Dedalus Press. Limerick-born, she studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, London. As well as this fourth collection of poems, she has produced a novel and edited Poetry Ireland Review.
NIGHT SKY
Paint at night those
stars in a frosty sky,
one brighter than another.
~
Sirius, Orion, Great Bear.
accustom eyes to deepest pitch
that delivers the Milky Way.
~
The more it’s scanned,
this sprawl grows fathomless.
Too late to catch low in the south –
~
as if the sound made
walking the lane just now
frightened it away –
~
a star falling and seconds later
another, lit trajectory
scorching headlong
~
over the western rim.
Yet, up above the heavens are
crammed with constellations like
~
so many freckles jostling for place.
Could it be some night
we are not there,
~
gone without trace,
planet earth, an empty house
as the face of night prevails,
~
unforeseen and certain
from the beginning
as only death is?
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