Aert van der Neer, Moonlit Landscape with a View of the New Amstel River and Castle Kostverloren, 1647
Oil on panel, 57.5 x 89.9 cm
Digital image courtesy of the Getty Open Content Program
it doesn’t take a genius
to know there’s so much
darkness among this light.
All it takes is a look
up at the night sky,
where those bright lights
peek out
from some faraway dimension.
& I’m always stunned
into stillness, watching
those stars blink at me,
wondering about that wide
world above, still soaked
from a nightswim
in the river, gnats haloing
my head, a reminder
of all those other little lives.
My mother once swore a gnat
was her spirit animal,
insisting she wasn’t fit to live
a long life, much
as she might have wanted
to when she was young—
& now she knows that light
above—living forever
as some floating thing,
her cat-eyes fixed on me,
maybe, likely shaking
her head at my silt-
stained dress. & sometimes
I ache for her arms,
her hands soft as silk,
& other times I hope
she grows wings, talons,
some way to drag me up
into that light.