THE NIGHT BLIGHT
In the city where I stay, on the street I have my house, I
live in the night. I hated it when as a part of eradication of blight and for “safety’s
sake” the city fixed all the street lights. Replacing all the old sodium arc
with their dull yellow hue, which wasn’t overly bright. I was once able to turn
my head to the dark clear coldness of the sky and as the city got more nebulous
and shadowy I could see more stars than e’er before. Now with the new wide
spread pole mounted LED’s shining so damn bright, half of the friendly stars
are wiped out every night. I miss them I’d come to know; but now I wonder if
those stars left brilliant enough to see are angry over the mockery of the new
major bluish lights ever present held by them walking in the shadows of the
street so easily seen glowing off ten dozen smart phone screens?
© M Durfee
8.15.2014
Human made light is often a bane.
ReplyDeleteIn more than just the physical sense my friend.
DeleteTotally understand how you feel. You might be interested that there is a Dark Sky Association with recommendations and standards for lighting so as to reduce the impact on the night sky (http://darksky.org/)
ReplyDeleteCalvin here in Detroit people have been complaining about no streetlights for so long, they are putting up the brightest LED's they can find. It sucks.
DeleteI remember seeing the Northern Lights from Detroit -- to my amazement. I hate white noise and bright lights ~ even hiking deep in the woods, hard to get away from them.
ReplyDeleteIt has been awhile since we've seen the lights Erik I remember last time, I poined them out to a couple of neighbors, they looked up and shrugged. didn't know what they were seeing and more importantly did nt care.
DeleteI am now living on an island that prides itself on darkness and low intensity lights--it is wonderfully dark and I can see the stars except for when there are clouds... The stars are so predictable and my old friends.
ReplyDeleteJeff you are living in my dreams. Jealous? Me? hell yes!
DeleteQuite a good point from the stars' perspective :-)
ReplyDeleteLove
kj
Thank you from the stars kj
DeleteThe very same orange light now defaces our neighborhood and disturbs my peace of the night, steals my stars that I have to escape into the vision of a ps game to make the night bearable...
ReplyDeleteMaybe once a week all the electricity in the world should be shut off from midnight to 3 am, most people have never seen but a few stars and most will never get far enough away from the city to ever see them Shadow,
Deleteit is amazing when you can find that true darkness and see the lights in the heavens...that is one thing i would def miss if i moved to the city....in the shadow of my mountain, they are still pretty clear
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I loved the Navy so much Brian was the horizon was only 15 miles away, beyond that there was no ambient light, and a navy ship is not a cruise ship, one red and one green running light.
DeleteI would settle for getting rid of the street light in my back yard.
ReplyDelete