A Fire In The Sky

I took advantage of a brief respite in the sultry summer nights of late and once more took to the hills at midnight, enjoying the first cool evening in over a fortnight. I eventually outran civilization, escaping the glow of the city and passing beyond the desert hills that normally hide the southern sky from my view. I found myself standing in awe at the vast expanse of starry sky that lay spread out before me, resplendant in a beauty usually reserved for the dark, cold nights of winter. There, center stage, lay Scorpio, menacingly poised in its eternal pursuit of the mighty hunter Orion, preceded in its traverse of the heavens by the brilliantly illuminated planet Jupiter, who seemed to pause momentarily before slipping out of view below the western horizon. The archer Sagittarius followed behind Scorpio, completing the procession of the prominent summer constellations that marched across the sky before me. As I stood there, I was enveloped in a cool breeze that momentarily caused me to forget the blistering heat of the day. But ere that memory was washed from my conciousness, my gaze was drawn to the center of Scorpio's wide expanse by an intense red glow in the heavens...Antares, a distant, yet massive red super-giant star, a red-hot ember that seemed to smolder in the darkness of the night, reminding all who viewed it that despite the refreshing coolness of the evening, the morrow would indeed witness the return to dominance of summer's province. It was under the baleful glare of that siren of summer that I turned homeward, knowing that when sleep finally o'ertook me, I would once again dream longingly of Father Frost's coming and welcome the passing of the season of the sun.