Night thoughts

Last night, R and I were out back, watching the sky for shooting stars. I don't see all that well at night, partly because my eyes are tired and partly from these bothersome bifocals, but I did see one quick lightscratch streak northward. We saw a tiny dot moving really fast, really high, that we thought might be a satellite. Then we both saw something odd, crescent-shaped with no running lights, flying about the height of a large incoming passenger plane. Its underside was faintly illuminated the slightest amber, as if picking up the reflected light of the town. It moved very fast, in a straight line, and was quickly gone.

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Friday is the postmark deadline for the Keystone Chapbook contest. Manuscripts have come in steadily, online and by mail. I'm hoping for one more small bundle because I had a goal number in mind and we're very close to it. Things will be fine if we don't hit this number, but for some reason the thought of actually making the mark (or exceeding it) has me buzzing. Just a little. Okay, a lot.

* * *

I meet with my new Foundlings* on Saturday. Tweaking their syllabus tomorrow.

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Here's a poem by Gayle Elen Harvey, from her 1992 chapbook, Flower-of-Turning-Away:

Absence

like the songs
of endangered birds. The stars
tonight are fuming
in darkness, caught in the throat
of the sky.
Someone’s filling room after room
with white roses, tells me
he’s sorry.
Love makes its own statement, a network
of warnings.

*- collective noun referring to first-year Foundation Seminar students, coined by a BU faculty member.

[photo: Night Alley, 1/12/07]