By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

She laughs and flames shoot from her chariot

moving through the sky. She will carry it,

(the splendor of light), and with lariat

she’ll rein in her gilded steeds, ferry it,

the glow, from dawn to dusk with merry wit.

She brings joy, life, pulses to beautify.

Her companion stars though, she sees them cry,

their tears shoot out, then streak across the sky.

Still she laughs, shares her light, as she rides by.

Someday she’ll fade, turn black–and then she’ll sigh.

This is a response of sorts to Jane Dougherty’s non-challenge.

Jane found the rather strange image above. It’s supposed to be a sunspot, and it comes from an 1898 book called The Story of the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. I started thinking about sunspots, and then this story that I read recently about an…