See more from George Hobson on his website: https://www.georgehobson.com, and find his poetry and theological works here.
I stood like an old man under the night
With all the stars sprinkled across heaven like crystals.
I seemed to hear them tinkle like sheep-bells
Far off in the earth-warm fields
Where the sheep were settling down to sleep
In night’s cavernous barn.
I saw the Big Dipper scooping up space
And its handle curving toward the bowl of the Little Dipper
Scooping up space, both Dippers hung in the void
As they were long ago when I stood wide-eyed,
A young man, and the old world too
Seemed young then to my eye.
I stood under the night like an old man
And saw a shooting star streak across the black
And go out like a spark somewhere out there,
And the Dippers motionless meanwhile,
Scooping out black space
Forever and ever.
I remembered I was once a young man
And went to and fro, here and there, like a firefly
Flitting about in the air everywhere
In the night, unconscious of time,
Till one day I was aware suddenly
That time was slipping by.
And it was like patterns of clouds at sunset—
You see the patterns changed but not the change itself;
And it was like waves seen from a plane high up—
You don’t see the waves actually breaking,
Only the foam on the sea’s face,
The waves having broken.
I stood under the night, an old man, and saw
My life a shooting star having streaked across heaven,
Persons and places fixed fast in the field
Of time past, like the stars in the Dippers,
And I seemed to hear them tinkling faintly
Like sheep-bells in the night.
Under the immense night I stand now, an old man,
And contemplate the nature of eternity.
Shall I not go out soon from this starred cave
Into light-filled Day, where change
Isn’t loss, where once is now,
Where all good is present?
Shall I not stream with the persons I’ve cherished
Through reaches of creation unimaginable now?
The field of time will be a field of love,
The young will be wise, the old, young,
Constancy of life will prevail,
And ceaseless communion.
The Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge. Charity registered in England and Wales. Charity Number: 1191741
Kirby Laing Centre, The New Mill House, Unit 1, Chesterton Mill, French’s Road, Cambridge, CB4 3NP
© 2022 The Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge
