081315   081324

28 years ago easterly from Western New York 
Lewis was next to me in the passenger seat 
the new moon dark and the child’s white face
scanning the starry sky for flash and streaks.
A Perseid meteor looked the same last night 
at the Yankee Siege Trebuchet
the pumpkin-catapult field without a moon or clouds
the Milky Way like a starry Van Gogh
no one there just me sprawled in a low beach chair
meteors unzipped the field of view
short and long magnesium trails
dim and bright 
some two at once.
As I told Lewis
I started to hear some unsettling things
he asked Like hearing what?
Like my arm moving against the chair
and other wilderness sounds for being alone.
Laughing together then he said,
"Wilderness doesn’t bother me it’s like that all the time."