Present Over Perfect

And together we rambled around an approximation of
Mary Oliver’s gorgeous poem—the wild night, the voices,
bad advice—“mend my life,” they cried.
“But then you knew what you had to do . . .”
And when he got to the part about the stars burning
through, my eyes filled with tears, and I showed him my
necklace. “Stars!” I said.
In the city, you can’t see the stars for the city lights. But
at the lake, and in the country, the stars are so bright you
can practically read by them. And that’s what I’m finding:
when I get out of the city—the noise and chaos, the
screaming intensity—then I can see the stars.
And they’re beautiful.