freckled stars

Tonight I can see the stars. The crickets are chirping again; they’re like a choir. The closest ones are the loudest and then, if you listen closely, you can hear the hum of the more distant ones – the bass crickets embedded in the background that support the first chair. Perhaps not much alone, but when faulty within the whole, the whole is no more and the loudest chirps seem lonely all of a sudden. Occasionally, the droning of a car will take over for a brief solo as it zooms past. Again, some closer and louder, others more distant and seemingly less significant.

The stars remind me of freckles, each holding their own story in a past life that is somewhat poignant enough to leave its mark on the next. Some are brighter, visually louder, others sink into the background. They may not be the most dazzling, but they’re there. Without them, there would be no vastness to the sky, no whole. I wonder if traditions that once shone as bright and constant as the north star eventually end up fading into the background too, forever confined to the apparently less exotic aura of the obliterated, the forgotten.