Starlight star bright

The only day of the week I get back home early and guess what.. The lights go out! The whole sub division was engulfed in shadow only to be briefly illuminated by the random flash of lightning.

Darkness and candlelight takes me back over the decades to instances in the past. One vivid memory is grams and the old house. We were lil 'uns back then. Once the lights went out ( which it did quite often back then ) we used to huddle together and she used to recant stories of my uncles childhood antics. It was like she had chronicled the whole thing, his growing years. There was always a spark and glint in her eyes everytime she retold them and we'd never get tired of listening to them.

Fastforward a couple of years into college, the power went out right before the exams. The university used to be near the gold mines so the surrounding, but distant buildings, were on the national grid. They resembled stars as well, distant, faint and ancient.The rest of the countryside was pitch black, people relying on either moonlight or starlight to navigate through the meandering country roads and paths. And the skies? adorned with stars, millions of them. I'd never seen so many stars in my entire life! On a clear night you could see the band of the milky way and shooting stars. God the number of shooting stars I've seen! Do you believe in wishing on shooting stars? I know I do/did. It might have been an act of desperation at the time.

Maybe I just had a lot of time on my hands back then, to gaze and ponder on the light from distant gaseous bodies now possibly long dead and gone. You feel the growing distance as the years go by.. reminds me of a poem from schooldays..
`Tis was childish innocence but of little joy,
to know that I'm further off from heaven
than when I was a boy..'

Now the sodium lights blot out these dreamy tapestries and the constant drone of machinery and modes of transport distract you for those delicate seconds a meteor streak by. I will close this entry with a mention of a iconic character, Major Tom, from an iconic year 1969.

I still hang on every word

In a world of faded memories
Where you're still in love with me
I can see it in your eyes
A look as if your major tom has lost control.

PS: The above song was actually by Cold - A different kind of pain. Major Tom is the main character mentioned in the track - Space Oddity by David Bowie, released in 1969. The release was to mark the Moon Landing.