Meteor night

is near the end of the second week
in August. We spread an ancient carpet on
the grass, and sweep it clean, then roll it up
till after the first dew falls. Friends come,
with food and vacuum bottles, blankets, pillows,
sweaters, and good cheer, staking out
their places on the viewing ground as at
a neighborhood picnic after games. The guests
are scented each with lavender, sage and mint
where each one's passing brushes through the beds
to spice the air, darkening now, as sunset
drains away from Jasper Mountain's scree.
The screen doors bang continually as small bodies
hurtle in and out of interior space.
Tea and coffee make their rounds, and someone
says: "There's the first star." Vega,
usually, unless it is an especially
planetary summer. One of the young ones
knows his sky better than his elders do,
and walks us through the bigger-seeming stars,
small arm sweeping the great ecliptic:
"This is Regulus; the red one is Antares;
And that is Altair." I tell him I like his Altair
best; its fire so hot it looks a point
of ice dropping to where the golden sun
went down. "Oh, look," cry others sitting near.
We are too late; they tell us what they saw.
A point of light has crossed an arc of sky
from the fence corner, beyond my neighbor's cows,
and faded out above the chimney tops.
We settle in to a long evening's work,
appreciating what bright shows
these small stones make, thumping into air:
and all as it were to entertain frail creatures
hardly less ephemeral than themselves.