What the Stars Knew by Steve Klepetar

          The stars know everything,
          So we try to read their minds.
          -Charles Simic

My grandmother climbed mountains,
my mother told me, the only woman

in a company of men. After climbing
all day, they had to leave their gear

and take cover from an avalanche.
“What if someone steals our stuff?”

she asked, and the guide
just looked at her and shook his head.

That night the stars, which know everything,
shone down with their silver light.

She was young then, and wondered
who her husband would be.

Of course the stars knew, but they kept silent,
spread out against the black sky.

They knew she would have two daughters,
and be unhappy with the man her father chose,

though he played piano well and was generous to a fault.
And the stars knew she would die a terrible death.

They knew her daughters would scatter
across the earth, have sons who would have sons.

All this the cold stars knew on that night swollen with silence and calm.



Steve Klepetar lives in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. His work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.