Interferometry
Jake Adam York
The dish,
like a moon on my neighbor’s roof,
gathers light
though it isn’t light he’s after,
no football or satellite films,
but the sound of light
instead.
Last week he called me over
to listen to Orion’s warble,
the stars’ ancient waves
twinkling in and out
through the solar wind,
caught clear as local channels
in his homemade radio.
The dish wanes tonight,
maybe searching
for more exotic noise,
black holes or planets cutting in,
and I try to hear, holding still,
the night’s music in his basement room,
but can’t break through.
As I shift in my sweat,
the dish waxes full
and the crickets’
high and quickening cycle
rises
like so many stars
sunk in the grass and burning,
burning the night
with song.
© 2007 University of North Carolina Greensboro