Every night, walking the dog in the driveway, I look to the sky and sing or pray or talk to my daughter who died. To me, the night sky is not a vast void. It is peppered with stars or lumbering clouds, falling snow, raindrops, and sometimes fireflies. It can carry fog or whipping winds. It can reverberate in frog song or roar with thunder. Though I look up and howl into the heavens, I know that is not where I will find my beloved ghosts.

One day in August, shortly after the rains stopped, I photographed a red slate walkway so that the mortar between the slabs of slate might be envisioned as the night sky.

Altered Horizons 71