December Morning in the Desert by Alberto Ríos

The morning is clouded and the birds are hunched,

More cold than hungry, more numb than loud,

This crisp, Arizona shore, where desert meets

The coming edge of the winter world.

It is a cold news in stark announcement,

The myriad stars making bright the black,

As if the sky itself had been snowed upon.

But the stars—all those stars,

Where does the sure noise of their hard work go?

These plugs sparking the motor of an otherwise quiet sky,

Their flickering work everywhere in a white vastness:

We should hear the stars as a great roar

Gathered from the moving of their billion parts, this great

Hot rod skid of the Milky Way across the asphalt night,

The assembled, moving glints and far-floating embers

Risen from the hearth-fires of so many other worlds.

Where does the noise of it all go

If not into the ears, then hearts of the birds all around us,

Their hearts beating so fast and their equally fast

Wings and high songs,

And the bees, too, with their lumbering hum,

And the wasps and moths, the bats, and the dragonflies—

None of them sure if any of this is going to work,

This universe—we humans oblivious,

Drinking coffee, not quite awake, calm and moving

Into the slippers of our Monday mornings,

Shivering because, we think,

It’s a little cold out there.

Was poet Alberto Ríos writing about a river shore in the Grand Canyon in this poem? Lake Powell? A house on a tiny stream outside of a small town? Another of the 128 lakes and major rivers in Arizona? Don't know, don't care. His poem immediately places me into a desert at night.

I was going to copy part of the poem here in which the speaker discusses the stars. However, I would have copied about half of the poem! Let's just say that the entire section of star talk--stanza 3 through 9--is breath-taking. I hope we have all been fortunate enough to see a night sky away from society's lights, a sky filled with stars "As if the sky itself had been snowed upon." Ríos could have left his description of the sky at the visual.

But he adds and then focuses on sound! Star sound! It is such an amazing surprise here, and he begins the speaker's thoughts on this subject with a question (wheeeeeee! you know I love questions in poems!):

Where does the sure noise of their hard work go?

I may be wrong, but I think few of us think about the noises of stars when we think about stars. This is so deeply delightful, and an absolutely great example of Robert Frost's very famous quotation, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” No tears here, just this idea of noisy stars!

This poem's speaker is correct--we should hear this star noise. But then he decides that maybe the noise goes elsewhere, and it is a beautiful theory; the star noise goes into the hearts of birds and all the other flying creatures. I will be honest--this made me tear up the first time I read this. I hope it is true.

Ríos ends his poem with an explanation as to why we do not hear the noise of stars--we are oblivious, too wrapped up in just trying to wake up in the dark early morning of a Monday in December. We are so oblivious, in fact, that looking out the window, all we think about is the chill we imagine is out there.

We could stop there and take this as a sad ending. However, I like to think that Ríos is giving us a chance for redemption here--his poem is a nudge (for some) and a slap (for others). Wake up! Listen to the stars! Marvel at the winged creatures! Go outside! Be a part of the world beyond your kitchen table!

This poem was originally published on the Academy of American Poets, as part of their Poem-a-Day series, on December 2, 2019. You can read more about him and read more of his poetry on the AAP site by clicking here.