August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower
by Twyla Hansen
(published in her 2011 book, Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet, Copyright © 2011 Backwaters Press)
In the middle of rolling grasslands, away from lights,
a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots,
the formations we can name competing for attention
in a twinkling and crowded sky-bowl.
Out from the corners, our eyes detect a maverick meteor,
a transient streak, and lying back toward midnight
on the heft of car hood, all conversation blunted,
we are at once unnerved and somehow restored.
Out here, a furrow of spring-fed river threads
through ranches in the tens of thousands of acres.
Like cattle, we are powerless, by instinct can see
why early people trembled and deliberated the heavens.
Off in the distance those cattle make themselves known,
a bird song moves singular across the horizon.
Not yet 2:00, and bits of comet dust, the Perseids,
startle and skim the atmosphere like skipping stones.
In the leaden dark, we are utterly alone. As I rub the ridges
on the back of your hand, our love for all things warm
and pulsing crescendos toward dawn: this timeless awe,
your breath floating with mine upward into the stars.
I missed posting this near August 12, and now it is September, but close enough!
I love the Sand Hills and I love this poem, as it mixes a love poem, a poem about place, and a poem about space all together. Three of my favorite types of poems all in one! It is not just a love poem for the spoeaker's partner, but also for the Sand Hills in Nebraska and for the universe.
My favorite line? "a moonless night untethers its wild polka-dots" is definitely it. The idea of the night untethering anything is very creative, and describing stars as polka-dots is easy to relate to and understand.
Another favorite line is " the Perseids, / startle and skim the atmosphere like skipping stones." Again, the poet makes these cosmic sights more comprehensible by bringing them down to earth. The description is apt and inventive.
There are cows and birds and the acknowledgement of our ancestors fears--those fears may seem silly to use now, but the speaker gets why. Her descriptions help us to understand as well.
We've been told by the use of "our" and "we" in the first 4 stanzas that the speaker is with someone, but it is not until the end that we see it is a romantic relationship. A simple touch becomes so signifigant and is only eclipsed by the breaths traveling upward together, joining the stars.
Little lesson: 4-line stanzas are called quatrains. (Sometimes, when my Long Island accent is very strong, I add an r and pronounce it quartrains.)
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