There were two stars in the sky, one twinkled, and the other fell. She spent hours following the falling star’s almost imperceptible trajectory across the sky with her eyes. She wanted to try and figure out where it could possibly land. Through darkness and into timid morning light, she waited. Her hands were outstretched, her breath held, because even a trace of pure stardust across her palms would fill her heart and a lifelong dream of dancing across the sky.
Her attention became caught up with the twinkles that spread across the sky and, somehow, she desired those as well; she couldn’t tell which ones were moving and which were not, and thanks to the overwhelming beauty of the night sky, she began to cry and clasped her palms in comfort. This, however, meant that she lost the falling star’s path, and as she raised her hands to her cheeks, stardust mingled with her tears.
She thought of another place and another time as the sunrise began to creep across the sky, and the stars winked out one by one. They would be back again tomorrow night but, “that’s enough,” she whispered to herself and knew she would not be back.
Rilke spoke of those falling stars, and like Rilke she tried and wanted to remember. Because without memory, there is no past, and without the past, there is not the present. And like Rilke her heart was full of glittering trails, of magical trajectories, and of stories already written and as yet untold.
Time's Thievish Progress 