Meteor Showers

Seven meteor showers a year, you said,

That’s all the sky will give you,

And you should be grateful - such moments are rare.

Here, you said, come and stand with me in Arizona,

Where the heat blisters skin and cold nights freeze bones,

But who doesn’t love a desert storm?

Bring a picnic, you said – make this torture cute:

So, I bore fruits in the multitude of atoms,

Swapped souls with the devil,

To satiate an emptiness of a dream

That the stars would someday come.

For months we sat under that fruitless sky,

Feeding each other figs and all things sweet,

On the endless repeat of your unsaying.

“When do we leave, where are we going”

I’d say, praying for an answer.

“Shhh, just hold my hand and watch”.

So, I did, because you were beautiful to hold,

But as you grew bored, bold and unrelenting,

I grew hungrier that constellations might form.

Then you grew angrier, more distant,

More unforgiving of my hungry questions,

Which were just confusion and so much yearning.

Why put ourselves through this hapless gazing,

When I love you all the same?

Why can’t you tell me what the stars might mean

When they are here my eyes,

Looking at you, but looking in vain?

Blame, anger, denial, coldness:

You became the desert darkness,

Expressing only an emptiness

I had once seen as a sky full of stars.

So, I walked, as all sane people would, and should -

To discover that the stars had been there all around me,

In those who met questioning with kindness.

SOPPY INCOMING: **Was having a read of Salman Rushdie's "Quichotte" and loved what he wrote about meteor showers and how often they happen and where - apparently the most beautiful one can be seen in the Arizona desert. I then linked this to the idea of uncertainty and the appetite for beauty/ecstacy that we have and how often this appetite is borne from fantasy. Inevitably this ends in sadness because nothing meets up with what we build it up to be in our heads and ultimately it is through standing in those moments of uncertainty with people that shows you who people really are. Some of this is about knowing when to walk away and the rest of it is about fullness and brightness, of knowing where to give and how much to give or maybe about where to stop giving, whether it be to a job, or to a person, or to a habit. The 'you' takes the form of something that entices us but which we know isn't good for us - in my case its this relentless capacity to give in to things that I know aren't making me happy. I think the end of the poem has come out of what friends have recently done for me (and always done for me) because it acknowledges that we don't have to look anywhere else other than in those around us to realise how much light there is in our lives. Maybe realising the sources that give you light vs those that give you darkness is really important for making us understand that the spectacular is in those who love us and show this without fail . I think how beautiful to be surrounded by such a meteor shower of people who meet my hunger and love with respect and boundless kindness - what a bloody blessing**