Photo by Megan McCarthy, April 8, 2024
I
I have driven 300 miles to witness a cosmic event
a celestial occasion
To experience wonder and awe.
Will I beat myself up if my feelings
aren’t up to my expectations?
II
How many times can I check weather.com
to see if it will be cloudy at Stowe
at 3 pm today?
Because right now, my friends,
it does not look good.
III
Somehow, we now have
7 pairs of eclipse glasses
for the 2 of us
Others have inadvertently
overbought, too
Tomorrow: a mountain
of cardboard and plastic
eyeglass trash.
IV
“I wish there was an eclipse
in our town every year,”
said the mayor of the village
where Motel 6 was charging $900 a room.
V
Eclipse vocabulary:
traffic
corona
retina
ISO
path
percentage
Totality.
VI
“Total Eclipse of the Heart”
by Bonnie Tyler
1983
masochist anthem
“Once upon a time there was light in my life
Now there’s only love in the dark.”
I loved it then
How I saw love
Not now.
VII
The afternoon is clear
We will see the eclipse
The cirrus wisps like mist above
Won’t impede the view
We hope.
VIII
We walk through snow and mud
to a grassy spot
In a wide valley
Mountains in a circle all around
IX
It starts like this,
A circular dark nibble,
Taken from the bottom of
the sun.
X
The bite slowly gets bigger
The sun is a fat crescent
Then it gets thinner and redder
After more than an hour
It is gone completely
Eaten by the moon.
XI
I see nothing through the glasses
I take them off and look around
Here, in Stowe, it is not dark as night
The sky is glowing golden
Weirdly pearly over purple mountains
XII
Now is the time it is safe to look up
with the naked eye
And there it is!
That corona
not a thin circle of
little licks
of orange flame
like I expected
But hard and white
like a ring of neon
artificial in the sky
Things are awry,
I bite my cheeks.
XIII
Yes, awe!
What next?
Perhaps the Northern Lights?
*
When I began this post, I thought everyone would know I was paying homage to the poem by Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” which I considered as common as cornflakes. But I’ve asked several well-read people if they know the poem, and they tell me they do not. So let me have the pleasure of introducing many to (and reminding others about) the wonderful Wallace Stevens poem, first published in 1917.
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
The sky darkens slightly
Becoming a bit off color
A breeze brings a sudden chill
Before the sun all but vanishes
Behind a black disc.
I knew the poem! In fact, Googled "13 Ways of Looking at an Eclipse" and found somebody else had jumped on that title too--but your poem is much more interesting--and fun! Motel Six charging a boodle? Jeez. Cloudy . . . reminds me of going to Machu Picchu on a day so shrouded in mist you could barely see your hand in front of you. We'd been told to arrive early and we did--but by 9:45 the mist evaporated and the sun beat down--glorious. Llamas, Alpacas, and that amazing landscape.