The Wonder Of Shooting Stars Poem by Jim Yerman

We arrived at the beach at 2: 45 in the morning…why, you ask, at such an early hour?
because that was the best time to see shooting stars from the Orionid meteor shower.

But the full moon's light made shooting stars almost impossible to see with the eye…and adding insult to our injury clouds were blanketing the sky.

So with the reason we came to the beach thwarted…from the sky we turned our attention away…and immediately noticed how the light from the moon overhead made the nighttime seem more like the day.

We noticed how at first we were mesmerized by the silence stretching across the land…until we heard the faint call of the ocean…whispering across the sand.

We noticed her voice never rose above a whisper…as across the sand it swept…
as if she was consciously keeping her voice low…while the animals of the daytime slept

We noticed how the moon, itself, was quite beautiful…how she really put on a show…illuminating the clouds above us…while making the sands below our feet glow.

We noticed how the glowing sand felt cool beneath our feet…
We noticed how the chilly breeze off the ocean made us forget the usual Florida heat.

We noticed by the water's edge…a family of birds out for an early morning treat…and we wondered, with no worms around, what do the early birds at the ocean eat?

But most of all we wondered if this beach in the moonlight…natural…untouched…pristine…was the way God intended to create it…the way it was meant to be seen.

There on our blanket in the sand…we realized how lucky we are…
and surrounded by the beauty of so many miracles …we forgot about shooting stars.

Yes, we came to the beach in the middle of the night to feel the wonder of those shooting stars…knowing seeing them is quite rare….
but we quickly realized…
the wonder was not in the shooting stars
the wonder was in being there.