Counting Stars

There is something beautifully wasteful about counting stars. The futility of the counting doesn’t deter me from finding excuses to stare at the shimmer splattered sky. So there could be a million sparkles up there, but why must I not count? Must I spend my time doing something less wasteful, less pointless? But the stars in the sky were put above us, to count and to stare at. What else could be the reason? Except it being god’s little gesture of prettifying the world.

When I think of stars I don’t think of them as what Wikipedia defines them – a massive, luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity. How does the dictionary define them? – Star [noun]: any of the heavenly bodies, except the moon, appearing as fixed luminous points in the sky at night. The only redeeming word in these definitions is ’luminous’. Luminous – radiating light, shining, bright – now that’s a bit of poetry in itself. Just as a star is.

For me, every inch of the sky holds something - A wish, a longing, a prayer. Dead people become stars. Hopeful moments become stars. A dream is like the star – revealing itself only at night, showing itself to you the way only you can see it. Every artist sees the stars as they like it. Van Gogh sees it as a shocking whirlpool of light. “That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars”, he says. Anne sexton says in her poem, that like a star she wants to die. Don McLean sang of the stars as the “Flaming flowers that brightly blaze”.

Though I don’t remember when was the last time I stared at a clear sky filled with stars. Cities are not pretty. No time to sit and stare. And even if you do, it ensures the pollution and the smog doesn’t leave you with much to stare at. I was brought up in a hill station, closer to the sky, away from the rush, where an old, green painted bench still perches invitingly outside my house, where lovers meet and gaze at the sky, where children gather and spot constellations, where I sat at the age of 12 and got inspired to write my first poem. There is something so magical about stars that I refuse to let the science enter my head. I would like to still tilt my head and marvel at the miracle of creation. I would still stick fluorescent, glowing stars on the ceiling of a room. I would still like to lay flat, in complete abandon, and stare at the sky for hours. One doesn’t see that in the city. And that is why I love returning to my small hometown every once in a while – so I can stretch my arms and feel like to can touch the stars again and count them endlessly. I like to revisit true beauty every once in a while. And there is nothing as gorgeous, as eternal and as pure, as a sky clustered with stars and dreams and joy.