What Sailors Know

for Ged’s new Granddaughter

There are pinholes in the universe

burning stars of gold

high in the night’s blue ceiling

so many a million-fold

The smallest holes imaginable

and millions of miles away

where lights from the yellow heavens shine

in splinters of golden spray

The sailors who made this magic

at sea on a cloudless night

sail home by these golden pinholes

when the moon is their only light

Their charts once pinned with thumb-tacks

their maps to plot the way

they pressed them to the heavens

with prayers to help them stay

When the charts like clouds had softened

they dropped as sleet and snow

but the thumb-tacks left their pinholes

and that’s what sailors know