Behold the Fleeting Meteor

Photo by K. Hartnett

Behold the fleeting meteor:

His life so short; his flame so bright.

He brings no second stroke to make

His mark against the fallen night.

-- K. Hartnett, January 2000

O Lord, make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! (Psalm 39:4)

A Bright Meteor; Blazing Its Way to Splendor

A bright meteor slashes through the constellation of Cassiopeia.  Usually no larger than small pebbles, meteors, or "shooting stars," are tiny bits of interplanetary material that vaporize many miles up due to friction with the Earth's atmosphere.  Some of these particles are the out-gassed debris from comets.  Without our protective blanket of air, the planet Earth would be subject to continual bombardment from meteors and other dangers, such as ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.  During the 1999 Leonid meteors shower, amateur astronomers using telescopes equipped with video cameras captured the impact of several meteors into the airless surface of the Moon.  If a meteroid entering our atmosphere were large enough, a portion may survive its fiery descent and strike the earth.  Such stones, called meteorites, are found all over the earth- but are particularly visible when strewn across the cold wastelands of the Antarctic.

The heavens are the heavens of the Lord; but the earth He has given to the sons of men.  (Psalm 115:16)

This is one of my favorite short poems.  It speaks of the brevity of life and how we should make the most of our time - a fitting thought for the closing moments of this calendar year.  The poem also subtly paints the visual cadence of a meteor shower in words. Anyone who has taken the time to lay out under the stars and view a meteor shower knows that the "shooting stars" appear both singly and in spurts of two or three.  Each lasts about the time it takes for you to count to three.  Thus the rhythm of the poem in the words "life so short," and "flame so bright," along with "second stroke," "make his mark," and "fallen night" are all meant to imitate the 1-2-3, see-it-and-it's-gone experience one has while watching a meteor shower.