To get our bearings

On cold clear nights

We bundle up and walk the town

To refresh our spirits

And get our bearings

In this wheeling world

To locate in the glittering blackness

Of the star-spattered sky

Our old companions

Orion, the Pleiades, Cassiopeia

To taste the wet chilly air

And feel it work its way

Under our jackets and sweaters

To listen to the vivid silence

The leftover rain dripping from bare branches

A great horned owl

Hoo-ing in the oaks

And the faint chiming of midnight bells

From the tiny villages

Our breath makes

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have appeared in many print and online journals. He has published six poetry collections: b. eagle, poet, The Honey Philosophies; Realpolitik: Poems of Protest, Outrage and Resistance; When Compasses Grow Old; Everything Wakes Up! and The Next Small Thing. He lives with his wife Cynthia in northern California.