THIS MAGNIFICENT NIGHT

The dog’s nose is to the ground
following a path only he can find.
I walk head down to the road
watching the shine of my headlamp in the packed snow.
We both look down.

We always look down
until I look up
through a pine bough
and birch branch frame
to see
dots of light peek through
from the dark blue of a night sky.
No streetlights.
No porch lights.
No spot lights.

I turn my lamp off,
tilt my head up,
up to the Little Dipper,
a blinking satellite,
treetop tips of
bare limbs and spiny needles
and this magnificent night.

We walk—
no torch light,
just the stars, the milky moon
and shiny old snow
to show us the way home.




-Patricia Wallesverd 

Patricia Wallesverd is a poet living in northern Wisconsin with a husband and a dog named Dorothy. Patrica finds her inspiration in the nature that surrounds her. In another life she was a cocktail waitress, an emergency room clerk, a grocery store cashier and most recently an  English teacher.