The Falling Star

/ February 4, 2018

One night as the stars above
Lay dormant in the sky,
A burst of light
Through the pitch dark did arise.

Trailing glitter
In the inky blue ether,
Like flecks of hot lava
Erupting through a million fissures.

The stoic heavens
Thus looked alive,
With the golden embers
Shooting across the sky.

A shepherd lad
Clad in raiment frayed,
Gazed up in irreverence
At the fireworks thus displayed.

For sore want
Of instruction
And imagination
Assumes he a star is falling.

‘If catch this I
In my arms tonight,
Won’t it be to my sire’s
Utter delight?’

And resolved was he
To catch that falling star.
Abandoning his repose,
He ran afar.

Chase the shooting star he did,
Unrelenting,
For miles across the meadow,
Unending.

Till the fireworks faded
Into the rose-gold of the dawn.
The sun rendered the heavens yellow again;
The boy abandoned his chase in hot disdain.

———

76 years have passed
Since the naive child
Turned into a time-wisened,
Graybeard, barely alive.

With his one good eye
Anon he spies,
That heavenly object
Traversing the night.

This time knew he
Not a fallen star ’twas
But a comet rare,
A miracle of science and God.

Dedicated to Edmond Halley and his discovery – Halley’s Comet.

Coincidentally, I found this little bit of trivia on this blog, while I was looking for an appropriate featured image for the blog post, that Mark Twain, the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, was born and died the same years when the comet appeared. He had hoped in his autobiography that he would die the same year when the comet made a reappearance, and he died a day after the comet appeared. The featured image and the image below are from the same blog post and I used it only because it was almost apt for my poem.

 

 

 

18555851_100676450514066_4494546682437471084_n.jpg

Copyright Š2018 Pradita Kapahi.

All rights reserved.

Related posts

35 thoughts on “The Falling Star”

  8. Bonjour ou bonsoir mon AMI (ie)

    Ce jour Ă  n’importe quelle heure de la journĂŠe
    J’ai besoin de t’ ĂŠcrire un petit mot
    Comme quoi je ne ‘oublie pas
    Et j’ai un peu de temps Ă  t’accorder
    Juste une minute pour te dire
    Que je t’envoie un beau sourire
    Et je t’accorde deux minutes pour te donner
    Sur tes joues, deux Gros Bisous d’amitiĂŠ
    Et surtout quelques secondes pour
    Te souhaiter une excellente journĂŠe ou soirĂŠe

    Avec du soleil au cœur

    Bernard

    ​

    Like

    Reply

  13. Thanks Mr/Mrs   for accepting and following my blog.

    I’m available to read your post at my convenient time.

    You have such an interesting topic I will love to read in
    your blog.

    I still remain  the simple blogger…..

    #PATRICKSTORIES
    Peace and Love

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s