I Looked Up

Stumbling home from the pub,
I made the mistake once and looked up,
the heavens in the sky, 
Stars and comets,
Each one so amazing in it's individuality,
The mist of the Milky Way,
I'd never seen the sky so vast,
So truly unique and it struck me,
How we are blatantly not the only thing that's here,
You see, I grew up in a tough, small town,
Built for the overspill, the overcrowded city of Liverpool,
The people that surrounded me in my youth,
They were tough people,
It was hard to express yourself unless through aggression, or through sport, or through shared music,
I never looked up, not at night,
Even if by chance, 
I happened to glance,
The streetlights would shine pink on the sky,
I'd see the vague shimmer of the usual,
Big dipper or the little pan,
Nothing spectacular,
Just dots in the sky,
Shapes that meant nothing to me,
But on that cold winters night 10 years ago,
Walking back to my place of sleep,
I looked up,
I was with my friend Daffyd, 
His brother and his fiancé,
I was not in my usual place,
I was in Llanbedrog, Wales,
I looked up, 
I stumbled in the tractor tracks we were walking in,
I fell on my arse,
Daffyd and the others laughed but I just lay back in the mud,
I couldn't believe my eyes as I looked up,
Daffyd lived on a farm,
He told me the first time i asked about it that it was a field and a house,
He was frighteningly modest, a true reflection on his character,
He was a gentleman,
His family farm was huge,
Acres and acres,
We'd been out to watch the rugby at the pub,
His local pub,
Full of Welsh people, 
Beautiful and happy,
As I lay there in the mud,
The chorus of laughing around me like seagulls chasing a morsel, frantic and manic,
I looked up,
I saw so much magic,
I couldn't take it in,
"How long as that been there?"
I mumbled in the mud,
Llanbedrog is as small as a hamlet can get,
Not even a street, 
No street lights,
No light pollution,
Heavens on display for any that choose to see,
I lay there in the mud not wanting to get up,
I looked up.
Daffyd and his brother helped me to my feet, 
I couldn't walk properly,
I looked up,
I stumbled and slipped, slopped and slided,
Safe in the arms of my friends who now thought me more drunk than I was and proceeded to walk me onward,
Arm in arm in arm,
I looked up and wanted to burn this beautiful sky in my mind,
I realised it was always there,
This history on show,
Each and every night,
This unreal sci-fi scene,
This space of magic that has always been surrounding our ball of madness,
It's rare that I look up these days,
I live in another small town,
For some reason though,
This morning in bed,
Putting off my rise,
I remembered that time,
Wallowing blissful in the mud,
That day in Wales,
In awe,
When I looked up.