cw: contemplation of existentialism

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We lay on the hilltop waiting for the clouds
To part and reveal the stars we’d hiked to see.
Silence but for whistling grass.
Dark but for our torches.
Abandoned but for each other.
In the city you cannot see the stars.
Too much smoke, and when the smoke clears
A shining sea of lamp light
Makes the sky like black water,
Reflecting back your torch
No matter how deep you peer.
I can see the city from up here.
A distant dome of orange haze
Glowing like heated metal.
In the city you cannot see the stars
Because the skies are embers all night long.
From here, though,
The city is but a pinprick
On an unspecified horizon.
We talk about the birth and death of the universe
And get upset at such dark matters.
It is sadness without a cause.
We will be long dead when the universe ends

- What comes when we die?
What came before we were born? Nothingness.
For us, maybe, but not for our mothers. -

So we will feel no material pain.
Somehow it is this emptiness that hurts the most.
As we talk, the clouds clear overhead
To reveal an open plain of endless stars
Like the celestial faces of a million spiders.
Some stars stopped burning before birds flew
Before trees grew
Before there were people to build the cities and lose the skies.
We watch them still.
I wonder, privately, who is watching us
And I shudder against the empty cold.