The first star I thought
I saw in the long
not quite dark sky
was maybe a plane because
somehow it was not there
anymore, no matter how hard I stared,

but I continued to stare,
like looking for a lost thought,
or for an item I knew I left there.
It was possible that vainly I would linger too long.
It might get hopeless because
I could confuse it with the other stars in the sky,

the billions of stars in the sky
and more beyond my stare
that can’t be quantified because
infinity is beyond the realm of human thought.
It doesn’t matter how long
you think, you won’t get there.

Finally, though, I’m sure that my star is there,
and another, and the sky
returns my long
dotted stare,
a twinkling speck for every thought
or however you want to imagine it because

the stars are everyone’s, because
they’ve been there
since before thought
itself, since before the word sky,
and before there were eyes to stare
and that’s a very long

time for a very, very long
thing, that does not exist just because
we stare,
its simply there.
I thanked the sky
for providing me with thought,

for being longer than thought.
Because the sky is there,
I stare.