When I was a little boy,
my parents would take us out
to movies
on Saturday nights
and when we got home
around midnight,
the Milky Way,
the whole galaxy,
the River of Light
ran across
the entire
darkness of space,
the myriad stars
and closer ones,
these seen
individually,
filling the heavens.
I was enthralled
and wondered
whether the lights above
were the City of the Angels,
and what lay beyond them?
The City of the Angels
has been brought north to my home town
and now the River of Light
is dammed
to grey faint ugliness
by the glare of floodlights
and the dust and smoke of pollution.
The children cannot see the River today
and they need to see it
in all its glory.
We all do.
The Bible says that
at the Dawn of Creation
the stars sang for joy.
Let them sing again.

- Stephen C. Wetlesen