WILDWOOD WAYS 



esis is born again in the heavens each 

 still winter night. It must have slipped 

 thence into the mind of Kant as he stood 

 in the growing dusk of some German 

 December watching the violet-gray frost 

 vapors of the frozen sky condense into 

 the liquid radiance of early starlight, 

 then tremble again into the crystalline 

 glints of unknown suns whirling in ma- 

 jestic array through the full night along 

 the myriad miles of interstellar space. 



Standing on the water's edge on such 

 a night you realize that you are the very 

 centre of a vast scintillating universe, for 

 the stars shine with equal glory beneath 

 your feet and above your head. The 

 earth is forgotten. It has become trans- 

 parent, and where before sunset gray 

 sand lay beneath a half-inch of water at 

 your toe-tips, you now gaze downward 

 through infinite space to the nadir, 

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