Amen.

Beautiful.

I've been noticing lately so many people walking around, nose to palm, checking their iPhone. Missing so much life.

One of the benefits I treasure, Gerard, from being a worker on the 'graveyard' shift, is the fact, that when I step out of my house to go to work, a beautiful night sky always greets me. And since I live away from the larger city, on the edge of a small town, An extraordinary sky greets me. Some nights cause me to pause and take in all the wonder before I continue on my way to work.

Gerard

This post resonates with something that happened as I walked to my home in West London from work on my birthday some 15 years or so ago and was confronted with a celestial scenario that caused me to reach for my pen and record a brief event in the Great Scheme of Things, before the moment dimmed and familial festivity enveloped me:

Moonlight and Mars in March.

A sliver of luminous lunar light
Sailing low in the south-west sky,
It’s earth-shadow canvas a murky white:
The stars stand still as it passes by.

This slender craft bore my soul to earth
But many news moons have waxed and waned
Since that cool March night of a star-crossed birth
When Diviana fulfilled what was preordained.

A north wind freshens the atmosphere;
The huntress in flight is an awesome sight.
The firmament’s structure is crystal clear
As Mars glows red in the high south night;

Syrtis Major’s oxidic plain,
Viewed by Viking’s probing eye,
Disclosed a dusty, dead terrain;
But its gentle glow warms the earthly sky.

Gerard

This post resonated with something that happened as I walked to my home in West London from work on my birthday some 15 years or so ago and was confronted with a celestial scenario that caused me to reach for my pen and record a brief event in the Great Scheme of Things, before the moment dimmed and familial festivity enveloped me:

Marvellous Moonlight and Mars in March.

A sliver of luminous lunar light
Sailing low in the south-west sky,
It’s earth-shadow canvas a murky white:
The stars stand still as it passes by.

This slender craft bore my soul to earth
But many news moons have waxed and waned
Since that cool March night of a star-crossed birth
When Diviana fulfilled what was preordained.

A north wind freshens the atmosphere;
The huntress in flight is an awesome sight.
The firmament’s structure is crystal clear
As Mars glows red in the high south night;

Syrtis Major’s oxidic plain,
Viewed by Viking’s probing eye,
Disclosed a dusty, dead terrain;
But its gentle glow warms the earthly sky.

I worked a lot of graveyard shifts too. One night I discovered the old brick power plant building. Looking at it from farther out the pier, dim lights shining through the arched windows and reflecting in the water, the scene took on a beauty that quite transcended the industrial surroundings.

Sorry about the double post - thought the first click hadn't worked. Very unusual for this blog, Gerard - most efficient software in the blogosphere as well as being the best blog for content and style. Wonderful bunch of regular punters, too.