Rohit Nalluri

I wonder what an astronaut sees

Of the Earth at night

When the moon is full and bright and spreading

Powdered snow upon the sleeping land.

The lakes must look like giant sheets of glass

And the land: ice-frosted,

Sugar-crusted,

Gently dusted

In moon-dust.

She may see city lights sparkling like

Yellow roman candles of roads and streets and lanes;

Like tiny golden bubbles in bottled champagne;

Like black cracked mirrors with yellow veins; she may see

An entire city –

People’s homes and lives and roots –

A spider-web of wakefulness,

Constellations of man and mirth and earth.

The moon and the astronaut watch

In light and in silence,

The slowly spinning Earth,

Respectful of the sleeping night,

Like a mother watching a sleeping child.

This one was shaped by clouds.