Film in the night sky

Gold cherry

By Rhiannonw

Wed, 12 Aug 2020
  • 2677 reads
12 comments
 

[from our garden, north Herefordshire 11/8/20]

A realm lights up in the sky
momentarily,
between cloud mountains:
gone in a flash,
but reappearing again and again
in brief bursts of orange or white light:
forty, fifty minute display.

Sometimes sharp zig-zag lightening
arrows across the centre of
the lit scene –
dark orange or sharp white,
diagonally or horizontally
from cloud to cloud,
not down to the ground.

No thunder
(did the sound shoot upwards?).
but the geese in the distance
wildly honking awhile,
disturbed.

Certificate U
Poem
Nature
Nature
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by onemorething on

What great photos - that is just what I am hoping for. Love the cloud mountains and the flashes of lit up realms and especially the goose thunder of disturbance. Rachel :)

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you, Rachel. It was an amazing sight — I think I'll mention that it was the dark night sky, in the title. But the brief brightly illuminated scenes, repeated on and on were so unusual, and we were so glad my daughter-in-law noticed and called us out. Quite spectacular. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you for the cherries for this unusual spectacle. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

This sounds so exciting! Are you describing a thunderstorm, or is it the Pleiades meteor shower? I have never seen anything like this!!!

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

It was definitely a thunderstorm, but the thunder couldn't be heard. Many people in the county saw and tried to take photos. It was difficult to catch the scenes, and in the dark my husband got his camera settings wrong, but he found that the little video he took had these two that he was able to take off as 'stills'.

We'd never seen anything like it and my daughter-in-law was really thrilled.

Last evening and night we got the ordinary thunderstorms around, plus heavy rain!

Rhiannon

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

How amazing you caught these spectacular photos in such great detail too, Your poem shows exactly how excited you must have been to see such a spectacal, a momentous poem indeed.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you, Jenny. Indeed, so good to be able to try to get the impressions down in words, as photographs can only capture a moment of such a spectacle! Rhinnon

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Rhiannon - I love a good dramatic thunderstorm (still waiting for ours here) - and this poem really does them justice as well as the spectacular pics - thank you for posting it.

Have you seen we're having a virtual reading night? It would be so lovely if you could come along and read something. If you'd be interested, let me or Mark Burrow know - and if you don't do Zoom I'd be happy to help you set it up before (it's so easy, even I was able to do it first time!)

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you, Insert. This was something very unusual, and a pleasure to watch!

Thank you for the invite also. Can I let you know very soon? There's no problem over zoom, – I use it quite a lot. Actually, last evening when we had the 'ordinary' thunderstorms rolling around the county, a few of us were trying to share on zoom, and for once it was freezing a lot, and we think the weather conditions were affecting it, but hopefully that wont happen on the reading night! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

oh good - hope you can make it. Just let Mark know as soon as you can. 

 

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day!

Please share/retweet if you enjoyed it too

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Oh, thank you. I hope others enjoy! Rhiannon