A Perseid meteor streaks past Glastonbury Tor, photo: Mike Kempsey (DT6 Photographic)
Last night I looked for meteors falling through the sky.
Overhead, the annual Perseid shower of shooting stars was in full production when I went out after midnight. Sitting in an Adirondack chair on the deck, facing northeast with Cassiopeia on my left, I was immediately greeted with a short-lived streak straight above me. Several more meteors made a brilliant passage within a half hour’s time but the most glorious was a stunning display lasting longer than the others that blazed horizontally across the eastern sky. It seemed so large and so close! I could see a flash of red and yellow as it burned up and went out.
I was breathless and speechless. It was a truly awesome sight that no one saw but me and perhaps the little bat that had been chasing his dinner back and forth across the deck.
I awoke this morning with the image of the shooting star still blazing across my mind’s eye. I can’t stop thinking about it. Sometimes this means there is a need to paint the memory of what I saw and so I will continue to ponder and wait to see what happens.
And tonight I’ll go out again.