Poetry Blog No 180 Heavens Above

HEAVENS ABOVE

This is a revised version of poem originally written many years ago about having watched a lunar

eclipse in the relative darkness of the country, some way from the nearest town. Perhaps it is living in houses with our entertainments- our screens and devices, perhaps it is the light pollution of streetlights and buildings in town and cities that blind us to the wonder-filled fact that the universe is there, right above our heads.

The following poem is in iambics apart from the last two lines, varying mostly from four to five feet with rhymes but with no specific rhyming scheme.

                 HEAVENS ABOVE

“On the big screen they showed us a sun,
But not as bright in life as the real one,

It’s never quite the same as the real one.”

-Bernie Taupman lyric from GREY SEAL Elton John.

And Saturn with white-yellow hue, gleamed far,

light-raying as a bright and eastward star;

and higher yet, the moon sphere, shining-white,

was flooding all of autumn sky with light.

Yet more and stranger happenings were seen-

the left side of the moon was catching rust.

Earth’s shadow-edge, brown-gold to reddish gleam,

the planet shine of air, as red as dusk,

was slowly sliding over lunar sheen.

Then earth’s whole shadow slow-eclipsed its face

and stole its night-bright, whitish beams,

that darkness creeping at a steady pace…

until our whole earth’s shadowing,

grown small by cosmic distancing,

had travelled over, swallowing

all of the moon’s reflected light.

Then fainter stars, at first unseen,

all hidden by the moon’s bright gleam,

were welcomed to our sight.

Then straight above our upturned gaze,

yet far in soundless depths of dark,

like some pale spectre on the night,

there Halley’s comet was departing,

departing never to be seen again

within the days of these, our lives.

And what will be by its return?

What keen and widening eyes

will view it passing in the dark?

Though comet and the moon-dark phase

by legend links misfortune’s ways,

no show upon the screen inside

could match that matchless night.

Heavens above, you left us in awe…

        starry-eyed.