Doris Lynch
Meteor Hound
On the tail end of the Geminid Meteor Shower, I wander the state forest road with our old lab. Mr. Darcy jumps ahead eagerly, amazed at his good fortune, this night adventure. Breathing the winter-clean air, I scan ten times more stars than I ever see in town. Under them, everything comes into perspective. Wars, famines, and disasters come and go; humans dance and make love and tell our children constellation myths. But the stars endure and, somehow, reassure. Mr. Darcy and I wander to a new spot, away from the yellowwoods. He taps then stands alert, sensing something I neither see nor hear. I stare up, willing a shooting star to zoom across the sky. Like the teal one I watched sear the Taos sky with the longest trajectory I’d ever seen. But no, only Castor and Pollux glow, one brilliant, one blue. I wonder which is the eternal twin of Roman mythology, the one that never dies.
coyote howls the dog's back hair flicks toward heaven
About the Author
Celebrating her first decade writing haibun, Doris Lynch has recent work in Haibun Today, cho, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, and FemkuMag. She also writes in longer forms.