Stars

Stepping outside into the midnight chill

Standing still, head tilted upwards

Neck craned back, staring, searching

Allowing starlight to fill my eyes

A blanket above my head

Heavy with the darkness

Penetrated by the glow

Of a million shining orbs

Impossible not feel humbled

Awestruck by the sight

Lost in the moment

Far too many to ever count

As many as there have been ancestors

Smiling down through the years

From their lofty perch on high

It's the biting wind alone

That brings tears to my eyes

Not the infinite beauty and scale

Of the stars above my head

I assure myself every time

I marvel at the colossal balls of flame

Burning up, dying, blinking out of existence

A million miles away in a far off galaxy

The light I'm seeing now could be from a star

That died a hundred years ago, long before our time

Shining on, eternal, forever

The atoms in my body came from those stars

Drifting through space, colliding

A chance in a million to collect together

To make me, yet here I am

Everything we are as a species

How far we have evolved

All we have done

Is possible thanks to the stars

We are all a product of stardust

Far away whispers, long ago reactions

We are strong and yet life is fragile

All we have created, built, destroyed

And yet we still gaze up at the stars

With the wide-eyed wonder of children

A hundred years, a thousand, a million

How much time has passed

And will continue

They were here long before us

And they will shine on long after