Total Eclipse, 2024

Why is it so disconcerting

to see the sun stagger into

an apparent hole in the 

universe created by 

an industrious moon

revolving, rotating, dancing

around the earth

who's doing her own cha cha

around the sun?
 

All this movement 

goes on all the time;

we just don't see it

until the moon decides

to reveal the obvious:

our apparent stability shimmies illusion. 

One cosmic misstep and we could all

be doing the electric slide

into oblivion.

Things we take for granted, 

like gravity that keeps us

attached to the planet,

can suddenly shift to unmoor us

with a quick unexpected death;

a child who's here, then vanished;

a slow glide toward divorce.

Such seismic activity goes on all the time

unnoticed until the earth rends

and the quaking ground sends us unsteady,

nauseous while riding unknown waves

with no sure footing.

Bright early spring in southern Indiana

with redbuds and crabapples competing

for foregrounded attention 

against chartreuse beauty

sprang so intense hearts lurched with longing

for everything to stay like this forever. 

Children scampered across merry playground.

Picnics spread across tables with strangers

sharing food across forgotten political divides.

Older adults walking dogs stopped to chat:

"Where are you from? How'd you find this place?"

and one word led to another 

as heads raised from telephone burials. 

The day graced cloudlessly sublime. 

Then the growing darkness crept 

silently across the scene.

The wind picked up, and it grew cold.

The day forgot what time it was

and decided to go to bed early. 

Dogs tucked beneath companions' chairs

with anxious whining glances

as sweaters waved across the scene's shoulders

and streetlights assumed their wary sentinels. 

Slivers of light slithered into total eclipse. 

Flanked by Venus and Jupiter, 

the moon assumed center stage to take a bow.

After all, while the sun just stood there, 

she'd done all the work for today's show 

like a female admin for her boss' male glory. 

We all broke into spontaneous applause

(how could we not?) before falling silent

in reflective awe in weird lack of bright. 

While everything hit pause,

shadows did some funky new dance

as colors swirled into tornadic slant.

Birds ceased singing

in earth's breathless, uncertain waiting.

What was going on here, really? 

We know the science, but . . . really?

Things were not as they seemed anymore

as words unmoored into hush.

We stared naked at the blackened sun

until pinprick dazzled into diamond flash

and the sun ceased its peek-a-boo play.

We couldn't help but cheer again

as the moon slipped off into the wings 

of midafternoon where she was supposed to be.

Eclipse glasses were tucked or thrown away, 

and bit by bit we remembered to forget 

that always we dance at edge of dark abyss.