toscana

light became twilight
and swallows became bats
as darkness settled over us

the milky way so clear
the children gasped
when we pointed to it

all of us there
staring up so long
earth fell away beneath us
and the murmur of crickets
became the sound of space itself
breathing between the stars

the dull clang
of a goats bell
startled us back
and signaled the sky
of our presence in the night

1998