Behind an open window in the summer sky
A new moon kissed the sun
The shadow of her movement
Fell upon everyone
Seductive
Uninhibited
Not a single cloud to curtain
Celestial intimacy
Pure syzygy
Creating a path of totality
Seventy miles wide
Where millions of people gathered outside
Pacific to Atlantic
Here comes the bride
I said
Mysterious and dark
Her beauty eclipsing the groom
So romantic
That string of pearls on Phoebe’s lunar neck
Bailey’s beads glistering
Before the presentation
Of a perfect diamond ring
Floating in outer space
Hiding Sol’s face
Momentarily
But not his hot desire
A blinding coronal fire
Circling her silhouette
Caressing the veil
With helmet streamers and polar plumes
A celebration
Across the nation
Locally for me
On
August 21, 2017
At
2:37 p.m.
For
A minute and fifty seconds
Evening came early to Traveler’s Rest
A kind of visitation that felt like the beginning or the ending of something
I thought of the Spirit of God
Hovering over a formless void at the dawn of creation
I thought of the Grim Reaper
Slithering from a man’s toes to his heart
I thought of babies being born and of failed marriages
And many other things
How so many Americans had called off work and picnicked all day long
Sandwiches and sweet tea in the blessed Upstate of South Carolina
Beside a magnolia
Whose blooms folded too early in prayer
Fooled by a circadian dysrhythmia
How I-85 came to a complete stop and parked at the side of the road
Men, women, and children wearing strange glasses stared into heaven
When it happened
As it happened
Some worshiped
Some cried
Many cheered
Preachers preached
Most were hushed with awe and silent for the first time in a long time
My German shepherd cocked her intelligent head at the apocalyptic sight
Backyard crickets stridulated loud and shrill almost to a scream
Two happy summer girls galloped across a bleeding lawn on colt legs
They were singing a song I can’t remember but need to hear again
When the great light went black as the pupil of a dead eye
The invisible became visible
At the glorious entrance of the wedding party
Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter
And best man Regulus
All were there
Star bright
Faithful friends in the faux night
Suddenly ten degrees cooler
At the renewal of the vows
Solar Saros 145, Member 22
A toast to you
Glass lifted and half full with the blood red wine of life
(Aged three years in the cold cellar of my memory)
Tap, tap, tapping on my keyboard
A plastic hourglass with a cheap spoon:
To another eighteen years
May we live them well
_____________
Andrew Dabar