I remember the
Hale-Bopp comet. I don’t really know why. I wasn’t even three yet in Spring of
‘97. But I remember Mom picking me up and pointing it out through the bathroom
window facing west. It was surreal, even to my very young mind—like a shooting
star that had been stopped.
We haven’t had a comet
like Hale-Bopp since. I’ve spent most of my life anticipating the next “Great
Comet.” We’re overdue for one. So, in 201X, I was paying close attention when I
found out a massive comet called Ison was passing the orbit of Jupiter, inbound.
Ison was predicted to
be “the Comet of the Century.” But there was a certain degree of uncertainty.
It didn’t take too long for scientists to recognize Ison as both a highly unstable
body and what they call a sundiver—perhaps a self-explanatory term.
You may or may not
remember how the story ended, but I think it was on Thanksgiving night Earth
got word that Ison was a goner. I saw the time-lapse on TV. It swung around the
far-side of Sol and a brilliant spray of vaporized material spewed out the other
side. The nucleus was gone.
But that was after I
wrote the poem “I Dreamed of Ison.” I mixed the metaphors of the grandiose
promises of comet Ison with the quiet childhood story of a stray cat, “Comet”
who eventually disappeared again. It’s kind of odd reading it in retrospect
knowing the details of Ison’s star-crossed meeting with the sun.
“I Dreamed of Ison” is
one of the 31 poems included in my long-in-coming poetry book Songs from the
Small Hours. The illustrated chapbook is finally available to the public via
Amazon. (And via me, personally, shortly. I just ordered a box of 50 of those
things to hand-sell.)
One thing though. I
haven’t released it as an ebook. I just thought I should say that before you
asked. I might or might not later, but I personally think it lends itself to
paperback quite a bit more, and you would be cheating yourself buying it in
electronic format—I might change my mind later. Depends on how many people yell
at me that they would get it if it were an ebook, but have no interest in
paperback, and throw smoke-bombs through my windows.
Honestly, I don’t know
how many people actually read poetry—I mean once they get out of school. But if
you’re one of those rare people, or would like to be, you can read my book.
Here’s the link for it. You might enjoy it. There are poems about insomnia and
butterflies and graffiti and windchimes and things like that.
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