Night sky at Deep Bay

Midnight, and the sky above the lake

ablaze with a zillion fires lit while I slept.

Each flame a declaration, each solemn planet bright.

I tilt my head way back, and there's The Milky Way,

there's Cassiopeia, Orion, Ursa Major the Pleiades,

a whole bright host.

Years ago while snow fell quietly on Latvia,

I entered the majestic Riga Dom.

From the balcony a choir sang, a capella,

from Schubert's Deutsche Messe,

the Sanctus.

The Baltic Sea slept

while the sanctuary's hushed, cold corners

overflowed with: Holy, Holy, Holy

and our eyes with tears.

On the beach tonight I shiver, not with cold,

but overcome—unwitting witness

to the firmament's explosion—with astonishment.

As if the host of Bethlehem's angels

and the celestial Latvian voices joined

to wake the midnight world

with radiant, resounding Glorias.

(When I am old or ill

will all the stars be there, still

burning, still untarnished,

declaring truth and beauty

are not dead, not even dormant?

And will that choir sing?)

~Sarah Klassen