A River of Souls through the Moonroof

On your left, a crescent moon,
Ahead of you, Jupiter.
Streaks of light from bits of dust

Silently needle and pin.
Where do all the concepts live,
The thoughts that darken Heaven

And rule this lower world? We
Stay les Fées des Houles, who
Live in the spectral lands

Or underground, caves and mines,
Among the atom smashers
And the gravity lenses.

Thousands of years and hundreds
Of generations at least
We’ve thronged the air around you,

And while you’ve changed so little,
We’ve changed so much. A hunter
Under the stars, a scholar

In the forest after dark
A few hundred years ago
Would have looked at this pattern,

The crescent moon, the planets,
The cloudlike light-and-shadow
Band bridging the sweep of them,

And seen something entirely,
Or almost entirely, else—
Our ancestors, faintly yours.