I Only Know the October Night Sky | Danielle Verwers

I Only Know the October Night Sky

Danielle Verwers

After yellow on the western horizon deepens to navy, Mars rises red, a war path in the east. And I finally find Orion’s belt on a satin sky. Turns out it’s been here all along, hanging on the outskirts of incessant city lights with Saturn and Jupiter somewhere in the mix. My tent is damp with rain, under a blanket stitched by insect song, but if I can camp through autumn night, if I wait and wake on a feather pillow stuffed with bird warble, Venus will greet me at dawn near the smile of a crescent moon. And she will forgive my perpetual blunders, how my structures always collapse under low pressure systems, and how, for the life of me, I cannot keep the firewood dry.