The Milky Way and Me

by Cecily Lynch     © 2015

''My God, what is that?''   I exclaimed, raising my telescope with trembling hands. I was half-way up a mountain, it was close to midnight, it was bitterly cold.  The Milky Way lay above me in all its beauty.  Into the little circle of my shaking telescope had come the most beautiful golden orb, hanging like a golden ball in the darkness, incredibly beautiful, serene, silent. 

''Why, it's our little old moon, I breathed.  ''Didn't recognize there, dear.  You are quite a Cinderella''

My hand shook a little as I held the telescope aloft. I caught a silver flash in the glass. I applied my good eye to the instrument.  Thereupon there appeared to me the spinning glory of Saturn's rings.  Round and around they went in rainbow colours.  I swore softly as my frozen fingers blurred the focus. But as luck would have it, I hit the spot where Venus shone glittering in frozen majesty.  

''Awesome,'' I muttered in my Cork idiom,'' ''Atta girl. You frozen princess, you!''

But being an Earthling, and badly in need of a cup of roasting coffee, I called out to the those beauties, the stars of the Milky Way, '' Bye Bye girls. Got to go'' and folded up my telescope.