21/52: signaling to the stars

luckily for my wife's sake
we live out in the woods

because tonight
while she was watching TV

I slipped out the back door
barefoot
(but otherwise clothed -
it's not one of those stories)
and standing in that patch of lawn
that we maintain,
beating back the assault
of maple and oak

I began, again, to send hand and arm signals
to the stars.

You know, communications
like the ones you see in the movies
with soldiers directing helicopters
coming in for a landing
over blowing sand or
waist high elephant grass.

I was signaling for them to come down -
any of them,
even one of the small ones -
a red dwarf would do.
To explain, in their heavenly wisdom,
the unfathomable nature of earthly existence.

I raised my hands above my head
to signal that I was ready to guide them in,
and then began to indicate
they were to advance and descend.

If you didn't know what I was doing,
you could easily have mistaken me
for a madman.

They haven't obliged me yet,
those stars,
but they will.
Once they understand.