Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Rain soaked and star struck

All day steady rain has fallen until the earth, already saturated with water, has sent rivulets and streams dancing in all directions. The air is pearl grey and coloured by birds’ wings outside the window. In a tangle of brambles a starling shakes drops of water into the sky. A kestrel hunches hungry on a wire that draws a dark line across the pearl.
All day I have painted until my head is saturated with stars. Constellations and the naming of stars dance through my mind turning it to dizziness. Beetlejuice and Rigel, Delphinus, Capella, Alpheratz and Alcor. In the sky there is a dragon, bears great and small, lions made of light and a winged horse all spread across the heavens. And the milky way is a river of stars, a ribbon of light.

2 comments:

Morning's Minion said...

"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?" [The Book of Job]
I've never been able to find the imagined pictures in the stars--only to marvel at the night sky. I don't think science will ever explain away the wonder.

Anonymous said...

The rain belt, heavy and lashing, swings from your Welsh wetness to mine, and the tiny flotilla of boats huddles, dry, atop my printer!