Skylight

[Anchorage Daily News image from this week looking north from town.] About 5:15 am, our doggie guest Emma became restless so I got up to let her outside. I was surprised by an auroral display to the north, stretching all the way from east to west, and largely unobscured by the ambient light below. It was not terribly chilly outside either, warm enough to just be wrapped in a blanket, so I woke my mom and we sat on the back deck for 20 minutes or so, listening to the still-sleeping city and watching the colors wrench and twist in the sky. Every combination was there - the large hanging curtains, sometimes blinking off and on as though to a switch; then the ribbons that explore, twisting and curling brighter and then to fade; the concentrated spots like searchlights growing in intensity until they shatter into spikes and ribbons of their own. In ghostly pale green with just a hint of pink here and there, while the stars far beyond continue to twinkle quietly as though unaware of the pyrotechnics in their midst.