Dribbling on the Liquid Night

This is for anyone who was ever carried outside to the see the stars when the light dimmed and died at the end of an August day like this one .

It could have been during the Perseid Meteor shower, or anytime at all.

Kenneth Rexroth wrote it and called it "Halley's Comet," after that ball of light that visits us only once in every 75 years.

I saw it, or thought I saw it in '85.

I won't see it again.

Maybe some of you will.

Thanks to Mr. Rexroth for wrting this jewel of a poem and to Deborah Bird, founder of EarthSky.com, for publishing a few of the pictures people took over the last few days and nights, including this one above, taken by one Mike Lewinsky.

Halley's Comet

When in your middle years
The great comet comes again
Remember me, a child,
Awake in the summer night,
Standing in my crib and
Watching that long-haired star
So many years ago.
Go out in the dark and see
Its plume over water
Dribbling on the liquid night,
And think that life and glory
Flickered on the rushing
Bloodstream for me once, and for
All who have gone before me,
Vessels of the billion-year-long
River that flows now in your veins

Spitballs

When an acorn drops on your head you say, "Ow! Jeese!" and look up almost in outrage, as if you actually thought you could keep on walking through life and not get beaned, even by that final cartoon Anvil of Death dropping out of the sky to squash you flat.You say “Jeese!” when the acorn hits - but when you go out on a clear night one-third of the way into August and actually see the Perseid Meteor Shower, you just say “Ohh!” Because for all the reading you may have done about it you're still not prepared for this quick stream of light across the sky, and then another and another. - the gods are throwing spitballs - and just for a moment you see that really you're not running a single thing around here. Rather you are a small child lifted from sleep, a child like the child in this poem about Halley’s Comet which whizzes past like some famous old-time gangster in a speeding roadster just once in most people’s lifetimes. But you were up, as I was up last night when the Perseid Meteor Shower put on its show. Large hands lifted you from your crib and you were one of the lucky ones who saw.Here now is Kenneth Rexroth on the subject of celestial showtimes, and underneath, the wonderful Mary Chapin Carpenter on the same theme:

When in your middle yearsThe great comet comes againRemember me, a child,Awake in the summer night,Standing in my crib andWatching that long-haired starSo many years ago.Go out in the dark and seeIts plume over waterDribbling on the liquid night,And think that life and gloryFlickered on the rushingBloodstream for me once, and forAll who have gone before me,Vessels of the billion-year-longRiver that flows now in your veins.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRxCDOQfkw4]