First Night in Maine

The porch light glitters a yard full of frost.

It's bedtime, but I'm not sleepy here. I'm awake, shivering,

pulling cold air into my lungs

and watching it puff out white.

And I turn the outside light off, 

look up and see the sky of stars.

Not just the brightest, that hint at constellations,

but also dimmer ones and planets, 

maybe even planets' moons,

so many bright points they make the patterns harder to find.

And the moon is rising behind the black branches of an ash or maple,

a tree that reminds me how I want to learn all the trees,

all the birds and the stars and the animals' tracks, like you know them.

The moon rising, and the cold air I breathe deep and all those stars

I wish you were here to see.