How brightly the stars shine beyond the day,
Men at work in town, children at school.
Birds twitter in a feathery mimosa
And ghosts visiting the abandoned farmhouse
Far from town, slip through the fingers of light.
Ding dong dell, Johnnie’s in the well,
Deep in the farmhouse well, out of sight
Of all but God’s curious, unsleeping eye.
He’s fallen far from the wafer of light
Which hovers above him at the mouth of day,
Fallen down, down the green stone cylinder
To a moist hole where there are no answers
To his cries but his own echo or
A cicada maybe, the prophecy of a crow.
A rope tied to the windlass slipped.
Who put him in? It was his own notion
After the blind beggar in town explained
How from a pit delved deep enough
You could see the stars shining at noon.
So many nights lying on his bed, gazing
At Orion swaggering across the heavens,
The boy would dream he was in a cave,
Warm and wise, watching stars dance
Above the literal day uncommonly bright,
Constellations acting out the old legends.
Down in the well the boy thinks he hears a cicada
Or maybe it’s the strange echo of his voice.
How brightly the stars shine beyond the day
Which by now has journeyed far beyond morning.
He wishes on one star with all his might,
That Orion might reach down and save him
Or wake him from this nightmare in his own bed.
He doesn’t know anymore if it’s day or night.
By now the children have come home from school,
All but the bravest. His mother will miss him.
—Daniel Mark Epstein
