Although the beach, with its adjacent r’s,
Alluded to a dairy farm nearby,
We liked to think that, on the shoreline, stars
Were sown and grown and gathered for the sky.
Along the cliffs that led there, we would try
To find good foot- and handholds, and would weigh
The merits of the low road and the high
Or scan the waters north towards Malletts Bay.

Some evenings, from the cliff face, we’d review
The early piercing stars above the lake
And disregard their long-ago debut
To guess which were of recent, local make.
And we imagined if we stayed awake
All through the night, we’d see ghost gleaners, bent
Over the shallows, choosing stars to take
At dawn back with them to the firmament.

We loved swifts that performed wild swoops and swings
Over the lake in unobstructed air;
We loved fish that, in sudden surfacings,
Nabbed supper with quick piscine savoir-faire.
But we best loved stars rising here and there,
Whether from hopes of something we might sow
Or from a lonely impulse to declare
The kinship of the lofty and the low.

—Timothy Steele