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pameladeanAround midnight I collected some bags of trash (a necessary adjunct to astronomical activity, one would think, if one only watched my behavior) and took them out the back door. Just as I let go of the screen door behind me, a fat white meteor trail ran from south to north along the eastern sky. I took the trash on out and went for the lawn chair I had left in readiness. It was so shiny that I drew a finger along the arm before I sat down. It was dripping wet. The parking lot of the mortuary across the alley was blooming and billowing with mist. I looked up, hearing Greg Brown, as I often do this time of year -- Orion, and the Pleiades, and I guess that must be Mars. They were not clear as I long to be; they were hardly clear at all. Well, I had seen the first meteor right through the mist.
In the background the traffic went by on Interstate 34W. Nearer, it was quite quiet. No sirens, no squealing brakes, no digestive-sounding motorcycles. Water dripped off the leaves. From time to time, I heard a leaf fall. Once or twice, a bird twittered. The website I always look at for advice in these matters says not to concentrate on one area of the sky, so I walked around the yard, gazing upwards. For a moment I thought I saw the aurora, dimming and brightening across Orion, but it was a much more terrestrial phenomenon, tatters and streams of mist advancing and retreating. The sky was obscured, and clear, and half-obscured. I looked down to ease my neck muscles, and saw that the mist had come into the yard. Because of the bright, bright security lights on the alley businesses and the many thin tree trunks between them and me, the mist had shape, like a crowd of, well, somebodies; it too seemed to be looking upwards.
About forty-five minutes later a huge streak of brilliant green ran horizontally along the northern sky just above the top of our house. "Oh, my God, "I said, and I had time to say it twice before the green faded. The mist retreated to the edges of the sky, and up high the stars grew clear and the sky dark. I looked down to ease my neck again, and one more meteor trail, white, skipped by, like a stone skipped on flat water, three bright splashes of light. I thought that three was a good number, and came inside.
Pamela
In the background the traffic went by on Interstate 34W. Nearer, it was quite quiet. No sirens, no squealing brakes, no digestive-sounding motorcycles. Water dripped off the leaves. From time to time, I heard a leaf fall. Once or twice, a bird twittered. The website I always look at for advice in these matters says not to concentrate on one area of the sky, so I walked around the yard, gazing upwards. For a moment I thought I saw the aurora, dimming and brightening across Orion, but it was a much more terrestrial phenomenon, tatters and streams of mist advancing and retreating. The sky was obscured, and clear, and half-obscured. I looked down to ease my neck muscles, and saw that the mist had come into the yard. Because of the bright, bright security lights on the alley businesses and the many thin tree trunks between them and me, the mist had shape, like a crowd of, well, somebodies; it too seemed to be looking upwards.
About forty-five minutes later a huge streak of brilliant green ran horizontally along the northern sky just above the top of our house. "Oh, my God, "I said, and I had time to say it twice before the green faded. The mist retreated to the edges of the sky, and up high the stars grew clear and the sky dark. I looked down to ease my neck again, and one more meteor trail, white, skipped by, like a stone skipped on flat water, three bright splashes of light. I thought that three was a good number, and came inside.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 01:56 pm (UTC)Greg Brown does a wonderful job of it, on the album of the same name. But still. Must have the other one.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-11-17 02:43 pm (UTC)http://tinyurl.com/69yxm
Wonderful album.