meteors
It was a few years before I left for college when I watched the sky share its secrets.
We headed out to the country where an 8 piece bluegrass band set up to jam.
Fiddles and hollering and the best potato salad I’ve ever had.
Bacon always seems to take something good and make it great.
We sat inside an old cabin as their melodies folded over us like a winter’s blanket.
They wore joy on their faces and made me want to dress the same.
People clapped along and tried to do the same without getting in the way.
I didn’t know a single song, but felt like I belonged.
Out the back windows and over and beyond the green grassy hill was an old graveyard.
“I wouldn’t go there,” they said and so we did.
I told her I wasn’t scared of what was out there,
unless she wanted to hold hands.
And if that was the case, I was terrified.
I was full of potato salad, not courage.
We passed
private property
and do not enter signs
hanging from a rusted chain link fence
as we walked by the resting spots of those who used to be alive.
Betty and John and William and Mary and Ruth and Barry.
She pointed to the ground and said this was a good spot.
“For what?” I nervously asked.
“To watch the meteor shower,” she said, as if she had already said it before.
She probably said it before, but I can’t hear when I’m scared.
Or nervous.
Or full of potato salad.
We laid back and looked up as God turned on the sky.
I’ve never wanted to go to outer space.
It’s too far away.
Also, I’m afraid of heights.
Plus, I don’t want to learn how to use the bathroom outside of earth.
We watched meteor after meteor fall through the sky with style,
just like Buzz Lightyear.
It was like God was sending us signal after signal.
Gigantic reminders that beauty is alive and so am I.
My finger followed them as they streaked from East to West.
I wondered where they were going.
I wondered when they would arrive.
I wondered where I was going.
I wondered when I would arrive.
And I still am.
For more of my poetry, check out my books!