I stand on the back porch looking up at the southern stars,
watching lazy traces of comet dust flaring across the sky. I remember the singular appearance of Haley's
Comet in my lifetime, the year my Nana died.
I ponder the content of a life, singular events in context. The dog alternately paces, then sits, then
paces beside me, waiting for another flash of a laser pointer.
I listen to the distant rhythmic surf. There is no wind, and so on this night the
sound travels to my ear from the more distant and rocky Cable Bay rather than
sandy Taipa Beach. I have lately been
overcome, weeping silently day after day, projecting forward past another
singular event rushing up to meet me, my daughter leaving for university. Dialectical synthesis eludes me, wondering
how I will bear her departure yet also knowing that I will.
An owl calls, another responds, my ears triangulate their
approximate positions. The dog paces,
sits. Another meteor trails across the
sky. Why do I not bring her out with me
to share it with me? Have there been,
can there ever be, enough walks, talks, moments spent together on the back porch
watching bits of comet tail burn in the atmosphere?
Is this the loss I anticipate? That I will not be able to casually access
her lambent presence? My opportunities
for a goodnight hug, an after-dinner movie, a conversation about the day just
past or the day to come, will be limited.
To this point in our lives, she has been as available to me as a sky
strewn with stars, occluded only by an occasional and impermanent veil of
clouds. But the future -- our future interactions will be akin to these
falling stars, fiery traces of star dust.
