Book Presentation – The Meteorites

given by Helen Gordon, Hertfordshire University & Author

1. ARRIVAL

A glint in the blackness. A tear in the fabric of a heavy curtain covering a bright window.

Move closer. The glint becomes denser, finds form. Colours emerge. A blue-white-marbled ball.

Move closer. Land appears, sandy, rose-tinged, burned with gold, covered with pale branching tendrils. The ball becomes a dome edged with electric blue.

Move closer. The soft inky brown of mountains. Rock folded over and over itself like a crumpled silk scarf. A world falling into focus. A body falling throughthe exosphere, the thermosphere, the mesosphere, the stratosphere, the troposphere.

Move closer. The dark green shadow of the valley. Bright lines of water. Patchwork fields. Arterial roads and grids of houses. A sign: If you live here, you’d be home by now.

Move closer. A car. A house. A child on a picnic blanket. The land rushes up too fast. Earth flies up like water.