By

Louise Gluck

There is a moment after you move your eye away

When you forget where you are

Because you've been living, it seems,

Somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.

You've stopped being here in the world.

You're in a different place,

A place where human life has no meaning.

You're not a creature in a body.

You exist as the stars exist,

Participating in their stillness, their immensity.

Then you're in the world again.

At night, on a cold hill,

Taking the telescope apart.

You realize afterward

Not that the image is false

But the relation is false.

You see again how far away

Each thing is from every other thing.

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