JANUARY
So after weeks of rain
at night the winter stars
that much farther in heaven
without our having seen them
in far light are still forming
the heavy elements
that when the stars are gone
fly up as dust finer
by many times than a hair
and recognize each other
in the dark traveling
at great speed and becoming
our bodies in our time
looking up after rain
in the cold night together
-— W.S. Merwin, from his book The Pupil (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001) used by permission of the publishers. Copyright © 2001 by W. S. Merwin.
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Star photo used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License (CC BY-NC 2.0)