Under Open Sky

There are evenings when I don’t bother pitching the tent at all. I just lay the thick, inflatable sleeping pad on a level spot of moss, close enough to the water that I hear it all night, far enough that the spray never reaches me.
As soon as darkness falls, the sky belongs to the stars again — so many that I sometimes stop searching for individual ones and instead take in the whole, like a surface rather than separate points.

As if drawn by something magnetic, I first look for the North Star, my Polaris, before losing myself again in the full splendor of the sky.

The bow lies beside me, leaned against a stone. My shoulder still remembers the day. Now it’s simply there, more company than tool.
I brew myself another coffee on the small burner, listening to the quiet hiss of the flame against the rest of the silence.
The steam rises straight up, no wind tonight, and for a moment I can give the warmth in my hands as much attention as the stars above me.
At some point, as I lie there, the line between being awake and falling asleep dissolves.
The stars blur slightly, the murmur of the water becomes a steady ground everything else rests on.

I think of nothing in particular. That’s rare enough that I notice when it happens.

In the morning I woke from the night’s cold snap, long before the alarm would have needed to.
The sky is still gray, the first light barely more than a suggestion above the trees.
I stay lying down, even though I’m awake, because I know this transition — from night to morning, from sleep to waking, under open sky — is something I’ll never experience in any bed.

Between sleep and waking.

Between sky and earth.

Between rest and departure.