Here is a poem by Lynn Chandhok, who will be participating in Brooklyn Reading Works‘ Poetry Punch at the Old Stone House on Thursday, November 15 at 8 p.m.

Her first book, The View from Zero Bridge, won the 2006 Philip Levine Prize and was published by Anhinga Press in October 2007.

Lynn’s poetry has appeared widely in journals including The New Republic, Tin House, The Antioch Review, The Hudson Review, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, and Sewanee Theological Review.  2007.

Order of Magnitude
Brooklyn, 2000

Out too late, on the avenue, I imagine—
or hope for—stars arched over earth like flowers
on darkened branches; satellites that fall
like messengers of old catastrophes;
bright red planets. Any of these would do.
But here, midnight is never broad or black,
the rooflines halve Orion, and the moon
in halo backlights aging cornices.

Once, I climbed switchback paths till trees gave way
to glaciers melting into lakes they fed,
resurfacing as islands, mirror on mirror,
like ice clouds skipping off a soundless sky.
There, nights were brilliant. God seemed plausible.
The cliffs might block the view, the valleys narrow,
but at a turn, it all turned to expanse.
That day, I found myself surrounded, cupped
inside a glacial cradle, while the clouds
unrolled like bolts of quilter’s batting, fell
and hid the sky. I sat alone and cold,
a single goatherd’s bell in hollow choir,
and waited.
            Now, walking the avenue,
I know the clouds will lift. I know this too:
Orion cartwheels, vanishing in spring.
And still I find myself imagining
that city lights might falter, or just dim
one night, till constellations in their full
dimension brighten, as in heaven’s view.
That sky might hail some new catastrophe.
At least I’d comprehend its magnitude.