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We’re crossing through the dust trail of a meteor. Swift-Tuttle to be exact.

Here’s a nice little piece about it all.

I love looking up into the night sky. I love seeing which stars and planets can shine brightly enough to make it through the city lights. I love the Perseids. I love seeing things that aren’t airplanes shooting through the sky. Ephemeral. Don’t blink, they’ll be missed. Imagining the wonder, and fear, of the pre-scientific age, at witnessing such a display.

In the early mid-90’s, I was working at a Summer Theater in CT. It was a converted barn in a tony, yet rural, locale. And nearby, was a horse farm on a hill.

This is where we used to go watch the Perseids.

Up on the hill, it was dark. No, I mean dark. You needed a flashlight to see the person three feet from you. And the sky was a huge expanse of wonder. Even when there were no meteors crossing it, the sky presented a bountiful feast of stars and planets laid out for your gazing pleasure.

And when the meteors were flying, ahhh, amazing. We’d sit there on the grass by the fence of the horse meadow and oooohh and ahhhhh like it was the most amazing Fourth of July display ever. And it was. Except of course, it wasn’t on the Fourth of July and the fireworks were nothing man could ever have created. We’d sit there watching the fire fly across the sky. Cool. Very cool.

And just as cool, from time to time, you would feel the earth faintly shaking, and then you would hear a rumbling. Then it would grow louder and stronger; freakishly increasing in strengh and volume in this darkest of places until it drowned out any conversation.

And then, at the fence, a mass of horses would appear. Snorting, pawing the ground, and then calm, some coming close, asking for a rub on the forehead. And we would stand there, with the horses and the meteors and the stars and planets, and snorting and other horsey noises. And it was magical.

And then, on some unknown-to-humans cue, the mass of horses would turn and run off to some distant part of the field. The roar of the rumbling hoof-falls deafening, then growing fainter and fainter until, having arrived at their destination, all was silent sky once again.

One of these days I’ll have to rent a car and have a Perseid reunion at that spot. It’s only two hours from where we live. And the view and the magic can’t be beat.

Nite,
k.

Tags: Ephemera, Life // 6 Comments »