Evening Stars

You give me a sense of perspective
even in this traffic jam,
stuck watching the red shift
of the distant light,
discovering you in the sky
beyond this idling smear
of human microbes on the
specimen glass called Earth.

Mercury, already swimming
in the sandy orange layer near the bottom,
soon to be diving timidly into the depths,
Venus hanging above in the clear blue
languorous, yet slipping soon toward
that dark oblivion from sight
which becomes out of mind.

You both align with
the sunken solar center
imperiously establishing
the plane of our existence,
overriding our puny frames of reference
which depend on the brief
flicker of our collective experience.

It is heartening to know
yet terrifying to understand
that long after humans have ceased
our mad careening of self-importance
the two of you will still leap
from Eastern horizons
And duck behind Western gates
playing hide and seek
with our non-being.