Meteor Shower Coming, A Poem!
In honor of the annual Perseid meteor shower approaching (best viewed in the wee hours of the morning, if you can stay up or drag yourself out of bed!), we are posting a poem. This one appeared in our issue #34. Enjoy: poetry and meteors!
Finding God in the Stars, Not Finding God in the Stars
by Mike Dockins
Cygnus points east, swoons backwards.
Did our ancestors in Ireland and Greece
hear it wail at that place where the sun
drops into its little dark pail? Meteors
streak the Northern Cross. Asteroid dust
is falling on us, but you're busy looking
for God, something nebulous at the end
of a telescope. Neutrinos swim through us
constantly, nearly massless. Billions of suns
burst and contract, a spray of atoms we'll
never see. "I can't get over God," you say.
Sprawled on wet grass, we look not up,
but out. I wish I could be amazed all the time.
We stand - into streetlamps, parked cars,
metal fences, silent beehives, the familiar
shelf of horizon, all the jarrings of the world
I know. I'm bent now away from the stars.
I don't know how it happens for you.
Finding God in the Stars, Not Finding God in the Stars
by Mike Dockins
Cygnus points east, swoons backwards.
Did our ancestors in Ireland and Greece
hear it wail at that place where the sun
drops into its little dark pail? Meteors
streak the Northern Cross. Asteroid dust
is falling on us, but you're busy looking
for God, something nebulous at the end
of a telescope. Neutrinos swim through us
constantly, nearly massless. Billions of suns
burst and contract, a spray of atoms we'll
never see. "I can't get over God," you say.
Sprawled on wet grass, we look not up,
but out. I wish I could be amazed all the time.
We stand - into streetlamps, parked cars,
metal fences, silent beehives, the familiar
shelf of horizon, all the jarrings of the world
I know. I'm bent now away from the stars.
I don't know how it happens for you.