Beneath A Devon Moon [2003]

I lay in the darkness,
flat on my back,
the weight of my future bride upon my chest -
staring up at the painted ceiling above me.
Staring up through the painted ceiling
above me
and into the empty room above.
Staring up through the empty room above me,
up through the tiled roof
of the 2-storey barn conversion,
and out
into the crystal clear Starscape beyond.
Betelgeuse.
Barnard’s Loop.
Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Ori.
My flesh ceases to contain me.
I merge quickly with the Northern Hemisphere.
I am become one
with the constellations themselves;
composed of distant gas giants
many millions of miles apart
and yet seemingly so close together.
An optical illusion
dreamt up by long dead men of the soil.
I face the Great Bear in battle,
and I fear him not,
for the weight on my chest makes me feel
strong
and whole
and braver than brave.
From way up here,
a lesser man might find himself tempted to
hitch a ride awhile astride Halley’s famous comet,
as it travels on its
elongated
elliptical
retrograde
journey around The Sun.
Out beyond the orbit of Neptune and
back
back
back again.
But 76 years is an awfully long time,
and I want to make sure
I’m here for her when she awakes tomorrow morning.