Aurora
a poem
Tuesday night, and I heard on the radio that we might see the northern lights. If only, I think, but I venture onto my suburban street at eight PM. The LED streetlights, the early Christmas decorations, my own certainty that good things are not mine to grasp – it’s too much. No heavenly light can compete with an earth that considers itself illuminated. But my eyes work harder than my judgment, and I see pink. Faint, but I stop and crane my neck up, up to try and find where it ends. As soon as I register the wonder, it starts to fade. I sigh, and turn away, and take a few steps towards home. But because I can’t lose hope, I look back. And there’s a beam of rosy light dancing in the air, piercing a feathery green veil, both flowing and pulsing like ocean currents. All above the streetlights, and parked cars, and scrubby trees watered by sprinklers. A shooting star streaks across it all, and I want to cry for hours, days. It’s all up there, and it’s all here. I want to reach out, for fear that it won’t touch me first. I want to kiss that radio host who was just doing his job. I want to see the sky every night.



Compose in darkness.
Expect aurora borealis
in the long foray
but no cascade of light.
Keep your eye clear
as the bleb of the icicle,
trust the feel of what nubbed treasure
your hands have known.’
- Seamus Heaney