ALL YOU OBSERVE IS YOUR OWN REFLECTION

Here's a poem that I calculate to be nearly a quarter of a century old. It has its origins in a real event, inspired by an evening spent watching the Leonids, one November. You can read the last draft here.

Waiting For Shooting Stars

all the downstairs lights are on

luminous beams that cover the garden

cause its contours to hide

in pools of thick darkness

you stand at the window

gaze outwards

but all you observe is your own reflection

I wonder if you have ever seen anything else

so in the dips and hollows

I try to find a place

unimpeded

to look at the sky

but the clouds reflect the town

crowd out the few stars

glow the dirty pink of squandered energy

then the clouds thin

and meteors flash

exhausted rock ignites

on contact with unrelenting atmosphere

burns bright then is gone

the night becomes colder

reluctantly

I turn for the house

It was, in my early days of reading, a poem I liked to give voice too. However, I looked at it the other day and thought that the compressed layout let down the essence of the poem. To be honest, I am not sure if I have made this version too obvious, too telling. That I think is up to the reader to decide. 

As the winter seems to be setting in, there was even sleet the other day here in balmy Torquay, here's Eliza Carthy with The Snow It Melts The Soonest. 

Until next time.