Watching the Perseids

Watching the Perseids Each year August eleven to thirteen We fly through a cloud of comet dust In those few days Watching skyward patient in the dark Shooting stars can be sporadically seen Without warning and at random Smaller or larger streaks of light Blaze fast across the sky and then are gone I love watching the Persieds Lying alone in a dark grassy field If clouds permit to gaze up at the stars Recognising old friends The Bear, Polaris, Cassiopeia Trying to stay vigilant For those unearthly wonderful flashes As earth hoovers comet dust at fantastic speed Some of the brightest ones burn red and gold Even swerving in their smoking paths Others straight pure and silver No two ever the same They say the same of snowflakes and it is actually true For a fraction of a second The sky rips brightly then falls dark again Only memory gives time to think On that brief light and form that lived and died Was it even real or just imagined I must wait to see another… I guess our lives are like those shooting stars From the cold eye of deep time Our birth and death seem instantaneous Only a high speed camera would resolve Changes in hue and path and luminance That from perspective of a grain of dust Feel like a lifetime I saw one shooting star that did not move Just quickly grew in brightness then was gone Predicted by geometry sometimes Meteorites come straight towards you Not moving left or right across the sky It might have even hit me If not combusting in our shield of air How many human hearts have I burned up Which flew as arrows straight toward my own? Pristine unpierced and cold I lie alone Staring in darkness at the sky Insects from the nighttime grass Make forays on my skin Before they too are brushed away But I can’t leave - till I see just one more Bright signature of fire across the sphere In this unbroken darkness, Even the familiar stars And planets looking back at me Leave me always alone and incomplete 14 Aug 2022