Diamonds in the Sky

This piece is based on childhood memories. I've used two different forms. Which do you think is more effectiver? -----BBB

Diamonds In the Sky
by BumbleBeeBoogie - May 15, 1995

(1) DRAFT IN PROSE FORM

A curious child cradled her chin in the palm her hand and gazed out the bedroom window of her family's home in the Albany flatlands. She spent late afternoons entranced by the fiery copper reflection of the setting sun in the windows of homes perched on the steep Berkeley hillsides. The colors faded as the sun's last light dipped into San Francisco Bay.

Her favorite time was after ten at night, with only a sliver of moon piercing the star-studded blackness of the sky. She stared at the distant Berkeley hills long after a six year-old was supposed to be asleep in her bed, unable to separate the house lights from the stars dancing over the tops of the hills.

The headlights of cars twinkled brightly between the black Pine and Eucalyptus trees as drivers wound their way up the hillside streets. The diamonds turned into ruby taillights as the cars turned corners on the twisting roads.

She followed their headlights, never looking away, for fear she would lose them as they reached the hilltop and merged with the stars. Then she could go to sleep, sometimes leaning against her magic window.

(2) DRAFT IN POEM FORM

A child's chin cupped in her hand,
pondering,
sundown's copper light glinting off windows of houses
perched on the side of hills.

A child at a bedroom window
watching
ruby car taillights
winding up steep, narrow roads
to the top of the hills.

A child nodding sleepily,
following
car headlights twinkling
through tree-studded vistas
like diamonds,
rising,
merging into the stars.