Because the Sky is Falling

The angels are calling, but I have no fear.

Breaking news, dreamweavers: the sky is falling. And no, I’m not just Chicken Littling my own sense of impending apocalypse onto the cosmos. Some of you may have heard of the Perseids meteor shower. For those of you who haven’t, every year our planet’s atmosphere collides with the debris from the Comet Swift-Tuttle, resulting in a spectacular natural light show. Tonight, I sat in my backyard smoking a cigarette and praying for a meteor to overcome the city’s light pollution to please pass through my line of vision. Even That Cat so quiet, listening to the crickets and distant sound of cars, waiting. Waiting.

And I wonder what it’s like to wish on something static and stable, instead of holding your breath? Instead of pegging all your hopes on something engrossed in its own destruction. How did we begin this legacy of burning. Where does it end.

The first time I saw the Perseids, the Leo scooped me up and we trekked to Rooster Rock State Park. Waded through a sea of hopeful human beings with our blankets and booze and snacks. Laid our bodies down against a green hillside. Waiting. Holding hands, we watched space trash drift through the permanence of sprawling inky black. Learned the technical terms for binaries, the mythologies of these flaming giants dancing so close they seem to be just one celestial body how many lightyears away. I pressed my mouth to her mouth, to her skin and skin, and wondered what it felt like to be so completely captivated by one thing. Two stars dancing so close they appeared as a single entity. Later, when she straddled me in the front seat of her car I pressed my curiosity behind her left ear, hoped she would find it there.

The second time, two years later. My gravity aligned with the Cancer, and wishing on every star seen and unseen that things would just turn out alright. My body, Rooster Rock, a friend and a blanket and wine packaged like adult juice boxes. So easy to sip and not think twice about the consequences of a forty minute drive or our real lives resuming so early the mext morning. Cursing the newcomers and the early leavers, their light pollution and noise. Cursing the cold, and our jobs, and every unmet need. Love, asleep how many miles away. Me, wide-awake and dew damp, the late night settling restlessly. How we folded my sheet over our bodies and shivered.

How I still believed she was coming until I just couldn’t any more. And I wondered what it would be like to wish on something static and stable, instead of holding your breath. Instead of waiting for the falling?

A memory: 20-something years old and we TETRISed ourselves onto the mildewed yard couch, staring at the sky hoping to catch falling stars. Waking groggy to sunlight how many hours later instead. Our bodies all dew-wet, and only warm in the places they’d been pressed together. How we stumbled to my bed, or yours. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. And I can’t believe I still write/think/talk/dream about you, but I do, and it makes sense even in its imperfection.

Every year the sky falls, and we are here to bear witness. Isn’t that some kind of miracle? Astrologers estimate the current debris is from the mid-1800s, and it amazes me that anything existed here before you and I. When was the last time you stared at a night sky without screens or distractions, just waiting? Maybe I’m the only thing falling, but is that really so bad. I’ve seen crowds gather for worse than this.

My loves. Don’t forget to look at the night sky the next four nights.

-b