13 Ways of Looking at an Eclipse

April 8, 2024

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.