“[W]e shouldn’t pretend that nothing is lost.”
Relative to the few stars visible from Chicago sidewalks even on clear nights, my parents’ backyard no more than seventy miles out darkens to a panorama that makes my heart skip to witness and sink to realize how far removed I am from sensing the humbling expanse of the universe. And then to weigh their backyard’s specks against the impossible glitter around Owachoma Bridge! I remember hearing there was no place in the U.S. so remote one might catch sight of the night sky’s fullness as did Americans living only a century ago — everywhere now tainted by artificial light. Short of total blackout, one so long as to outlast our technical measures to guard against it, the stars are in fact the stuff of history. Some day yet I’ll up and away from it all.