a love letter to sleeping under the Milky Way

I am stretched out under the Milky Way

  like I am every night

except that tonight I can see it

enormous

splashed above me from horizon to horizon.

I breathe in the fresh grasslands air

  that grows damp after dark.

I smile and snug down into my sleeping bag

  in the bed of the truck,

one cheek nearly resting on the back tire

of my mountain bike.

In the morning I will wake to a peach sky

  framed by the tree I know

the one with chunky bark and small velvety serrated leaves

  and birdsong, birdchatter, birdchips.