Ash Wednesday at the Observatory with Third Graders

Ash Wednesday at the Observatory with Third Graders

Luke Taylor Gilstrap

so through the living light I let my eyes
go wandering among the ranks of Blessed
--Paradiso, Canto XXXI

The sky a flat, blue-black lid,
I am the last to arrive
at the field trip I scheduled,
just now knowing what day it is.

Dads, moms, sisters, brothers--
only a few of us acquainted
with this time of night. Our room
must be dark, the astronomer says,

if we're going to catch anything
good, as if the stars were running
from us or we had silver nets 
to hold them. They've done their homework,

the kids, learned Whitman and "The Pleiades",
drawn and re-drawn the spring
constellations of the northern hemisphere
in wobbly, thick pencil strokes;

traded plaid uniforms of the daylight
hours for hoods pulled up over flat-billed,
rhinestone-studded hats. They spiral up
the near-invisible ramp, letting the rail

guide them, beating on it, climbing,
one wild younger sister almost kicking
up my jaw. Unfazed by the harrowing 
red of the exit sign pulsed into each

of their round, ready shoulders
and the folds of their jeans--
I can't un-see the vestments--
they look, finally, into the scope

and see where light can go.

---

Luke Taylor Gilstrap
Poet

Photography by Thomas De Bruyne