Celestial Navigation

Velvet
black falls slowly.
Day dies in silent calm.
Then, one by one, stars blossom in
the dark.                                              (DG)

Black glass.
The bay reflects
a mirror of the sky
Our mast light flashes a starry
mirage.                                                (LJC)

Bay waves
surround all sides,
gleam ghost-green. Phosphor trails
ride the rollers. Dark water comes
alive.                                                     (DG)

Beneath
uneasy seas
stillness deceives. No light
illuminates deeply hidden
secrets.                                                 (LJC)

Rising
out of darkness,
leviathan appears
in alien starlight, blind and
hungry.                                                   (DG)

We fear
the mythic sea,
ancient home abandoned
when we crawled ashore, learned to cast
shadows.                                                (LJC)

Oceans
on earth are dwarfed
by the black vastness that
looms overhead: the boundless sea
of night.                                                  (DG)

We sail
the solar winds,
fall off the edge of maps,
risk monsters and madness, adrift
through space.                                         (LJC)

(DG=Denis Garrison
LJC=Lisa Janice Cohen)