Before fake news and photoshop,
we used to say
the camera never lies.
Yet, in this bowl of night,
fish-eyes collect and amplify
the light beyond discernment’s reach.
More shades than green meet here
in ribbons, plumes and streaming spikes,
then fade, but flow again.
Their known particulars –
of solar wind, magnetic field and charge released –
expose our partial sight.
By boundless silence held,
as underlings, we name the stars.
And do not need to hear,
from yard-thick ice, some muffled creak
to understand
there’s a lake unseen, below.
iii.2018
many thanks to Bruno Keiser for the photo
