fireworks

Last night's northern lights show was the best one I have seen yet. E and I kept running out to the frigid balcony wrapped in blankets to get more glimpses of the action. An arc of ghostly green would span the sky and then disappear, and then come back again a few seconds or minutes later in a different place. Then the arcs whorled in on themselves, making giant sky-snúðar in the distance.

Some time later, I was already in bed and E on the phone when she rapped on the bedroom glass from the balcony. She was whooping with excitement. I ran outside on the cold cement of the balcony and there was another sky-spanning arc but this time the whole of the arc appeared to be flapping in the breeze, like the giant flag they used to hang out at Iversen Ford on Route 3A. The body of the flag was green, but the bottom edge of it was brilliant Hendrix purple. The whole vast form was shape-shifting so fast that it was hard to take it all in at once. And then it was gone, and the sky black again.