bird by bird

By Kenneth Ronkowitz A star chart tells me that the star I am seeing tonight is 500 light years away. It may have died 499 years ago, and I am still seeing its last light. Stars are born, they live, and they die. What is the light that remains when we leave? If I die after writing this poem, is this my light, and how long might that light remain and be seen? I wondered last night and still this morning about these questions, and still now, standing again outside under a mackerel sky dappled, rippled with clouds and the sun, our family star, which will also die. Then, there will be no light remaining. Perhaps, this is not what you believed. When it dies, the Earth dies with it. No last light to come after it. In its end, the sun will expand into a red giant and will vaporize the Earth. My son rises and joins me outside his coffee steaming a small cloud into the December air. In this enormous moment, we look into the sky and universe. We are a fortnight from the year ending and hope...