Stargazer

Stargazers watch you, twinkling in the sky;

they see a tiny point in a deep, vast ocean,

just like all the other bright dots 

on that dark canvas.

They don’t see the millions of years you have lived—

the life now long behind you.

Perhaps you have already gone,

your life extinguished in a bright supernova.

Perhaps you collapsed 

until you extinguished yourself,

hydrogen becoming helium becoming carbon—

Dying the death of a dwarf star.

They cannot know, from their safe earthly bubble,

the light years between you and them.

They cannot know, from their miniscule marble,

just how singular you are.