A poem a day each April, for Katya the Poet's Dew Drop Inn |
Campsite, summer. 10pm. "Do you see what I see?" An evenly spaced and lengthy string of lights pulled slowly across an open Adirondack sky He says he sees it too, and so the first relief is knowing it's at least a dual hallucination, not mine alone. We watch what cannot be a comet or a shooting star, nor nebulae, nor plane. I'm freaking out, he's calm. He says it must be just a military test, but I say clearly aliens are singing as they decorate a festive flaring skytree. (There is no one to ask, for now, unplugged from Internet and cell). The second relief is having a witness to back up this fantastic future tale to everyone who won't believe me. My heart, alarmed, says wow and wow and holy shit and this is huge and in my mind the rolodex of answers is flipping blank, comes up with nil, scrolls toward a vast impossibility. We watch until it stops, perhaps ten minutes worth of stars aligned in slow commute to who-knows-where before the show is over. The third relief (this time a disappointment) comes once home, where Google says Musk's Space X station was a-passing by. My awe turned into awwww; it's just another billionaire, stealing all the wonders of the night. note ▼ |