The Perseids
Aug 13 2021
The meteor shower came and went
somewhere overhead
behind an overcast sky.
But when I read that there's a streak of light
just every few minutes,
I realized
there wasn't much to miss.
Because instead of a few random flashes
“shower” sounds like fireworks, and light-shows,
a pyrotechnic display
illuminating the heavens
to astonished ooohs and ahhhs.
So I suspect they're over-selling the thing.
Like a rapid-fire huckster
hawking his wares,
a carnival barker
pitching the tallest man in the world
to all the rubes and gawkers and marks.
Who was just some poor soul
with sad eyes
a sore back
and clown-sized shoes,
who had a hormone disorder
and mostly sat down.
A meteorite
is what little survives,
a scorched rock
still hot
from its fiery fall to earth.
Like an envoy from outer space
with traces that date
to the birth of the planets.
Now this is what I'd pay to see
or happily stay up late for,
something alien
that I could hold in my hand
and forensically examine.
Looking for signs
of the origin of life.
To be inspired
by the majesty of nature.
To reassure myself
that beating the odds
is actually possible.
Or perhaps to remind me
how fragile we are
under the thin blanket of air
that shelters us from space,
a hostile universe
full of hurtling fragments of rock
that couldn't care less
whether or not we're here.
Both. It was cloudy here. And after I read a bit more, the Perseids sounded disappointing. “Shower” is over-selling it.
Where I live, there is little light pollution, so I'm often able to see not just a brilliant night sky, but meteors. So one every few minutes or so doesn't sound worth waiting up for.
But a meteorite would be an exciting find. As the poem says “an envoy from outer space” you can actually hold in your hand: fresh from the cosmos; uncontaminated by earth.
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