The Backbone of Night

Is it important to 
Be able to see this
Mottled pattern, mostly
A vague glow to the eye
Even here in high, bare,
Star-friendly desert air,

A kind of cloud, darkness
Layering against light
Against greater darkness?
We have better pictures
We see with the mind's eye,
Recalling as we look

Up into the middle
Of what some call our home,
Some call our destiny,
And some call our mother,
That huge numbers of stars
Are represented there,

With distances between
The closest packed of them
At least as much greater
Than the farthest we've gone
As the age of mountains
Is than our longest lives,

Scale so stupefying
One can only rehearse
The vastness stupidly,
As if saying something,
As I've just done again,
Or else join Walt Whitman

Exiting the lecture
To take himself outside
Just to "gaze in perfect
Silence at the stars." Yes.
Very nice. Except they
Don't need us to see them.