We park the car in the sand-dusted space, 
the windows swiftly fog with salt air.  Engine off we  
try to be satisfied looking up through the glass 
for it’s too cold. But then, no,  
we walk out slowly into the very deepest black, 
find our footing on the edge of the cliff, 
if we stumble the beach will catch us 
but I act afraid. It isn’t the dark 
but the sky lit up with the constellations I can’t name. 
The wind is in my ears, the sand is cold and wet on my back 
and I let the layers show themselves until I find the light 
of the north star, the spin of its smallest orbit. 
It knows its limits, marks its place around the axis 
pinned through the planet. We discern 
its constancy, its certain place.  
Polaris, pole star 
nothing in the autumn sky could move it, could lessen 
its modest glimmer north north north 
and that is to say north, to say, the way others found their light 
through forests, through deserts, through the ancient stories 
through the night tonight, cold and terrifying  
its smallest beaming still solid 
the courage of it to burn like that 
outside the realm of the moon 
flickering like a candle  
breaking us a little