Читать книгу Thresholds and Other Poems - Matt Hohner - Страница 14

Under the Leonids

Two a.m., twenty-five degrees. Shivering on a

roadside between open fields on top of a hill,

I gaze east and up at November’s mute fires,

magnesium streaks quick-etched across the night,

their glowing trails hanging like tiny hosannas of light

before dissolving back to heaven. Farther from earth,

satellites zip from horizon to horizon in silent orbit.

On the cold wind, a soft whiff of nitrates and damp soil

swirls with wood fire smoke from nearby farm houses.

The distant low roar of a passenger jet rises and falls.

Somewhere, a dog barks at deer shuffling through

the corn stubble. Minute under the vast and endless

river of stars, I watch with gratitude as sparks shoot

from the Lion’s mane, heavenly travelers hurtling

through the darkness of time to crash hot to earth,

brief glories scratching the hours like static, fading

swift as dreams the moment we wake. Their ions,

like knowledge, linger to tease, then are gone.