Missing Stars

Guarding the sea-turtle nests

Alongside strangers

Under a full moon in the still air of midsummer

About the time the turtles should hatch

We look into the starlit sky

Curving around us like so many distant conversations
Too far away for us to hear

And note that missing

Is the Big Dipper.

We wonder where it went.

There, after all, is the Little Dipper and,

There, the North Star.

So where is it?

Like small children who believe in a divine plan,

We wonder who took it away,
And then we forget about it.

Believers in something,

We wait for the turtles,

Ready to guide them into the sea,

To life inside a deep mystery

Amid other conversations we will never hear,

According to plan.