Seeing Stars

Greg Brown sings in "Poet Game" :

I went out at night to take a leak
underneath the stars
Yeah that's the life for me.
There's Orion and the Pleiades
And I guess that must be Mars
All as clear as we long to be.....

Well, tonight was that kind of night. I took a walk around 9 PM, and the stars were as clear as they could be - at least in a city full of halogen lights. The street lights were almost noisy with their encroachment on the stars. But as I passed into a more secluded area, the blossoming trees blocked the filtering light, and the stars were very clear indeed. Instantly, I detected and savored the sweet smell of new spring flowers filling the air, even though I had passed them under the street lights and not noticed the fragrance.

It's funny how sometimes our lives are like that. We step out from the cacaphony of our turbulent lives and into a zone of relative calm.  And suddenly we see colors more clearly, friends more dearly and problems less severely. So, with apologies to a brilliant songwriter:

I step out at night to take a walk,
Underneath the stars
Yeah thats the life for me
There's happiness and hope and peace
And I guess that must be love
All as clear as I'm starting to see....