In a wild universe

Since I was awake, I decided to go get a glass of water from the refrigerator. Then I pulled on a pair of pants and I stepped outside with my cold water. The night was alive with katydids calling. The moon was an egg, tumbling just over the apartment block out across a couple of back fences. The grass under my feet was wet. Droplets too minute to see one by one were spread out over the earth. And all together they were reflecting the reflected light of the moon until the brightness nearly blotted out the stars where I was looking until I could almost count the remaining stars one by one.

Even as I turned to the darker portions of the sky, with some patience I could have almost counted the stars. Humans in these parts have illuminated the night on nearly every corner and then some. Still, sometimes even the view of the universe from my backyard is worth getting out of bed for.

I was in no hurry to be anywhere, but still too restless to stand still on the earth already spinning a thousand miles an hour beneath my feet. I stepped towards my driveway. I suspect that countless humans had grasped some of the dizzying sense of relativity in the universe well before Einstein did the math. The earth spinning and hurling around the sun every year like a bucket on string. The solar system, pulled along at astronomical speeds out along one spiral arm of The Milky Way. And Milky Way galaxy hurtling out to beyond who knows where at a little less than light speed.

And yet, in my neighborhood and with my own gaze, I am the only body not at apparent rest tonight. On my own, I am merely picking my way carefully in my bare feet along my rocky driveway down to New Hampshire Street.

At two o’clock in the morning, the traffic is not a problem. The asphalt still holds the daytime summer heat. The pavement is worn nearly smooth from the passage of countless car tires. When things get to be countless - things like cars and streetlights - the effect becomes measurable. Whether one notices these things or not, is another question. But tonight, one creature barely counts. Still, I move.

The water in my glass is still cold in my hand and the glass is beaded with some of the droplets in the sky coming near to me in the night. The water will quench one thirst. But it turns out that a drink is not why I am not back sleeping in my bed tonight.

Walking slowly up the street, the katydids call - but not to me. They are heard on all sides - but not seen. Tree branches cut black overhead against the brighter sky like a pieces of a serrated knife. Shadows crouch alongside of the houses on either side of the street. Porch lights. Solar lights. An occasional lighted window. And at the corner, a street light shines amber, brighter than the moon. The steel manhole cover in the middle of the intersection rattles a little when I step on it. I could probably read a book on this circle if the book had large print.

The moon hasn’t finished tumbling. A nearly negligible night wind wisps against my chest. I turn to find the pole star. How far beyond Central Middle School, a short earth block ahead of me now, before I would be standing dierectly underneath that north star. And if I could fly through space tonight, how long would it take me at my human pace to reach that single star, a point just barely bright enough for me to see from where I walk along New Hampshire Street. I watch my shadow grow taller and taller as I amble down the amber lighted street. I’m walking due north - by the star and by the street laid down in a grid.

A car’s headlights encourage me back onto the rougher concrete sidewalk. I pass our house. Plenty of deep shadows lurking under the canopy of trees and hiding under bushes.

And then I stop. I saw movement ahead. An animal was over there, just at the curb, twenty or thirty feet ahead of me. And then in a splash of dim light, I saw a white stripe down the center of its back. A skunk in the wild! It roamed in an urban environment, to be sure, but this skunk was as wild in its own mind as it could be.

I smelled nothing. The skunk seemed unaware of me. It skittered along nose to ground, never taking a straight line. I stood still. And then as the skunk moved away from me, I followed along from what I hoped was a safe distance. Mostly I stood watching, wondering about that skunk’s life relative to mine. The skunk gradually took its twisting and turning path farther away from me. When it started to cross 15^th street, I could see the skunk pretty well by the street light there, nose down, bushy black tail up.

Then a car came speeding down the street, just missing the skunk by a few feet or so and the skunk scampered back into the bushes on my side of the street and out of my sight.

I turned and looked for the tumbling moon. If it ever stopped falling, all the king’s horses and all of the king’s men couldn’t put this fairy tale land together again. As I walked toward home, I spied with my eyes the moon in an open space between the houses.

A bright night sky. Shadows below.

I wonder if I might be becoming a little semi-nocturnal, myself. But I won’t follow a wild skunk all night long or too closely. I like to drink my water cold from the refrigerator too much to go that skunk’s way in the universe. But what if we go a little too far with the amber lights and the cars? A little more wildness might be a good thing.