Dear Planetarium

Before cell phones, maps aglow on dashes, Never-Lost, I found myself, one night, in the deep of a New Jersey township development– a tangle of calculatingly curvy lanes, purposely jumbled junctions, cookie-cut split-levels– unfamiliar, first visit, with directions and daylight going in, forgetfulness and darkness coming out–

but knew my house lay east and north, so rolled down driver-side window, gazed up above roofs and trees, studied the splay of familiar points spanning the black, drove home that night like an ancient mariner, by the stars.

I store no months of water nor canned food, no stockpiles of guns, candles, fire-starters. I harbor no ox nor plow. When asteroid or Armageddon strikes, I will only know which way lies east and north.