- Libbie
Northern Sky
On the only clear night in July
we walked all the way to the edge
of the quarry
and watched the northern sky.
A comet had come
too late for a proper portent,
an exclamation mark,
pointing down in surprise
at our catastrophe.
Life, you said,
is just one disaster after another
but somehow it manages to be beautiful
anyway.
The next morning, I talked to my grandma
on the phone, not in person,
because she is dying
as we are all dying
and managing somehow
to live in the spaces between what we’ve lost.
In my garden there is a sunflower.
Its seeds, tight-packed, make a spiral.
I trace the shape
to the center.
My finger pauses.
I trace the spiral back again,
from center to the edge.
Libbie Grant
July 16, 2020