“Meteor Shower” by Clint Smith

I read somewhere that meteor showers
are almost always named after

the constellations from which
they originate. It’s funny, I think,

how even the universe is telling us
that we can never get too far

from the place that created us.
How there is always a streak of our past

trailing closely behind us
like a smattering of obstinate ¹ memories.

Even when we enter a new atmosphere,
become subsumed ² in flames, turn to dust,

lose ourselves in the wind, and scatter
the surface of all that rests beneath us,

we bring a part of where we are from
to every place we go.
 

Credit Line: “Meteor Shower” from Counting Descent by Clint Smith. Copyright © 2016 by Clint Smith. Used with permission by Write Bloody Publishing.
 

Teach a Facing History lesson featuring this resource. 

• 1Obstinate: willful, stubborn.
• 2Subsumed: absorbed.