Aurora Borealis
by Ramola D

Tonight, it seems, on this night

that I was born

(it seems a hundred years ago now)

a geomagnetic storm, already begun,

will loose an aurora in the north

and those who live in northern latitudes--

Michigan, Canada, Scandinavia and such

can wander outside in the cool

of their northern summer night,

lie down ringed by all those

            larches, firs, and pines

raise their eyes up to the stars

and wrap themselves in light.

Not being north enough, here

in northern Virginia

our usual night-insects

have begun

their scree of rattle-hum

high

in the deciduous trees

beneath a sky magnanimous

with cloud

while inside my belly, a rolling

                        roiling child

tries out a twirling frog-kick

                        in between

dog-paddling, butterfly-kicking and

                        somersaulting

all the way from Oregon to Maine

                        between my hips.

I breathe the rained-on air from grass

            imagine how

the sky must look--

the polar flares of green,

the slide and flash

            of ethereal blues,

the dazzling, reddened flush       

while, warmed up now, the baby

                        roundly kicks

to her own cosmic pulse.