Picture it with me. Me, desert born, desert resident, for the first time ever, in the Pacific Northwest. I faced the sky from a chaise lounge planted near the lapping sound of Dyes inlet shore. I gave no thought to dark matter, black holes, galaxies on the move, or subatomic particles. I could hear the sound of the Sound. I was satisfied. I had not yet learned that the clear sky above me, and the warm August weather was unusual in this part of the world. I was focused.

I had been told to watch for it, this meteor shower, and watch I did. Hour after hour, meteoroids, fireballs, what I affectionately called falling stars, burned, blazed, and without a sound, blasted from the Perseid Radiant across the northeastern sky. Hour after hour. Captured I was, well into the wee hours, by flying fire.

The peak hours for us this year? August 12-13, well after midnight. Look toward Perseus.

That August 1983, that year when sky and wooded land wooed me away from desert, I wrote this:

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER

 

THERE’S A TENT MEET TONIGHT

AT THE CORNER CALLED SKY;

IT’S CROWDED INSIDE

BUT THERE’S ROOM.

 

WHAT I NOTICED LAST NIGHT

AS I WANDERED NEARBY

WAS THE VIBRANCE, THE SPARKLE,

AND PLAIN MOCKIN’ OF DOOM.

 

BUT OLE PREACHER PERESEID CRIED,

“YOUR TIME’S NEARLY ENDED!

SO, WE’LL SING THAT REFRAIN ONCE AGAIN!”

 

SHOULD HAVE SEEN ALL THOSE STARS

SQUIRMING HARD IN THE SKY,

BEING WARNED TO REPENT FROM THEIR SIN.

 

WELL, SOMETHING WAS WORKING.

SOME SPIRIT WAS MOVING.

THAT REFRAIN SEIZED THE CROWD

WITH ITS POWER

 

FOR NIGHT AFTER NIGHT,

TO THE PREACHER’S DELIGHT,

THOSE STARS WALKED THE AISLES

BY THE HOUR.

 

Barbara Roberts Pine

1983 Dyes Inlet, Silverdale WA