Dribbling on the Liquid Night

This is for anyone who was ever carried outside to the see the stars when the light dimmed and died at the end of an August day like this one .

It could have been during the Perseid Meteor shower, or anytime at all.

Kenneth Rexroth wrote it and called it "Halley's Comet," after that ball of light that visits us only once in every 75 years.

I saw it, or thought I saw it in '85.

I won't see it again.

Maybe some of you will.

Thanks to Mr. Rexroth for wrting this jewel of a poem and to Deborah Bird, founder of EarthSky.com, for publishing a few of the pictures people took over the last few days and nights, including this one above, taken by one Mike Lewinsky.

Halley's Comet

When in your middle years
The great comet comes again
Remember me, a child,
Awake in the summer night,
Standing in my crib and
Watching that long-haired star
So many years ago.
Go out in the dark and see
Its plume over water
Dribbling on the liquid night,
And think that life and glory
Flickered on the rushing
Bloodstream for me once, and for
All who have gone before me,
Vessels of the billion-year-long
River that flows now in your veins