Saturday, April 4, 2015

Rapt in Down: Eclipsed





Do you think I woke you at 5:05 so you could ignore the spectacle? Muse can be a rowdy bitch.
The eclipse was due to climax at 5:05. The auspicious wakeup hadn't escaped me but I had glanced outside to a no-star drizzly morn. Even if clouds miraculously parted, I would never make it. This was to be the shortest eclipse on record, total fullness to last just five minutes. I might drive miles, climb a hill and see nada. I nestled my lazy self between the covers intent to close my eyes. It didn't work.

as she first appeared - like a skein of yarn
Up I popped. I donned down and a wool hat and headed into the Puget Sound morn. If nothing else I would listen to that eerie silence that accompanied vanishing planets. I placed my ass atop the soggy cold picnic table. I bargained that several inches of rain had rendered the splinters soft. Teak barked into ebony at invisible threats; Hobo's silhouette appeared on the rooftop. All was dark except ... except ... there it was ... the eclipsed ghostly moon through the trees. I gazed full on at the ochre pearl before launching from the table. I grabbed my camera and pointed my slipper-clad body down the gravel road. Apparition, indeed, to anyone up at that hour.

She remained visible. I strode towards her, mesmerized, like some mysterious tide she beckoned from afar. She held me rapt, squeezed
every ephemeral moment, as storm clouds heaved and tumbled, closed in and magically separated.

The shadow across her blood red brow receded. I turned my back as dawn slowly -- or was it quickly -- crept up from behind. Luna, lost to my horizon. Me, fondling the metaphor of parting ways.










10 comments:

  1. Love the photos and description. I, too, woke just before five and let the shade down, and there it was. I saw the moon gradually disappear, then waited, but clouds moved in. Special, still! Thanks! Nance

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    1. A special gift to you in Montana, Nance. The clouds part, we receive. xoxo

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  2. When are you coming to Montana?
    Nance

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  3. Me too! I got up and dressed myself in warm clothing,a long coat, hat and plenty of curiosity. As I rounded the corner of the house and looked west, there she was ~ a beautiful burnt orange with a budding bright light on the upper edge. I thought how grateful I am to not be of some early primitive tribe exchanging fears as to what all of that means and where could we go to hide!! Grateful that I could gaze upon such an event in awe of such beauty, with a sense of the spacious silence that was housing a slow turning of events ~ a drop in the cosmic ocean that we witnessed as huge!

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    1. The long coat is so appropriate ... another layer of mystery!

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  4. One more thing: "There is something soothing to the consciousness about simplicity." I love the truth of this statement ... from the newspaper interview with you, I think. Nance

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  5. Beautiful all around. 💛

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