I stand in awe beneath our darkened skies
To ponder what beyond the stardust lies
What grandeur scattered in the cosmic dust
What energy in the bright stars lies trussed

Were it not for the pull of clear night skies
How much poorer mankind’s earthly surmise
We study black holes and cold dark matter
From the tight spun rings of stellar splatter

We reach back in time using starry light
To see our baby cosmos forming bright
From the wobbles and dimming of the stars
We find hundreds of planets way past Mars

Backyard telescopes view rings of Saturn
Spiralling around in stunning pattern
Huge Jupiter with its great red spot found
Four moons cartwheeling nightly round and round

Coloured filaments of explosions past
Betray supernovae of power vast
Seeding neighbouring space and giving births
To bright blue stars and shimmering new earths

How few the shrieks of delight and surprise
Were it not for the blackness of our skies
By all the jewels in our heavens I hark
Please oh please don’t be afraid of the dark