meteor

METEOR

See!
Across the constant constellations' night
there spears another gleaming light.
Fleeting, fleeing, a meteor spark
streaks across the vast sky-dark.

There!
A sudden-shining line
is etched upon the lightless air.
Across long night's slow-passing pace,
the stillness of the star-set signs,
for but a moment of all time,
there flames its flashing trace.

And then it vanishes, forever gone,
a single grace note in night's song,
and leaves no mark on stellar space.

So swiftly passes
the sudden show,
the thin sky-flame,
you would not guess
it had been so,

had you not happened
just then to see
it had been there-
had you not happened
just then to be
aware.