Precise

The predawn insomniac watches
the televised launch of space shuttle Discovery,
S171 on its carefully calculated route to the space station.
Through the wide window nearby
the predawn sky tinges pink through naked spring trees.
Eventually the sun stabs through
the clenching dark maple fingers:
yesterday molten gold
the day before, fiery blood
today, a pale elbow rubbing
through a threadbare gray sleeve.
Each day, the sight transfixes me:
I could be leaning against
a towering plinth at Stonehenge,
peering at the sky up the tiny inclined tunnel
from a pyramid in Egypt,
meditating on the moon across the stones
high above the valley in Macchu Pichu—
but I am fixed here in conversation
with the sun and its tree in a language
I have forgotten.