STARS

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh
"Starry Night Over the Rhone"

STARS
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still, 
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz
And misty red; 
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
The aeons
Cannot vex or tire; 
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still. 
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

In his book, The Lost World of the Kalahari, Laurens van der Post recounts his time living among the indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert. He describes their shock when they discovered that he couldn’t hear the stars.

At first, they assumed he was joking or lying. But when they realized he truly couldn’t hear them, they were deeply saddened. To the Bushmen being unable to hear nature was the most serious affliction a person could have—a sign of profound disconnection from the world around them.

This was my favorite poem when I was 10 and lived on a hill covered with pine trees. In the summer, we children used old skis to slide down the hill on pine needles. At night, we'd lay on the hill, spicy and still, and gaze upon the stars, myriads with beating hearts of fire, and whisper secrets  I've now forgotten.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/01/featuresreviews.guardianreview34