Through solar glasses the sky, and
the trees, the houses, the people are all blackness. Only the sun still shines
through, appearing like a tiny orange-red ball. The moon is only a black dip
that grows larger. As it passes over, the sun becomes crescent shaped and
moon-like. My glasses slip off and even though the sun is partly shielded, it burns
too bright to look at.
Behind
us, the sky darkens like evening. The temperature drops. We’ve been hold
crickets will start chirping. If the light has any affect on them, we don’t
notice. The light certainly affects the humans though. When the sun is covered,
we hear their raucous amazement. Totality has been reached.
The
solar glasses come off. The corona flares around a black circle. We take
pictures that can’t compare with what we see in front of us. Red dots appear at
the edges from the sun’s light traveling through the canyons of the moon. Then
with a bright blaze to the right the sun returns like a diamond ring; enlarging
until we can’t look anymore. The solar eclipse is over. And we were totality there.
look up to the sun
small in blackness; glasses slip
cringe at half-dimmed light
Written for dVerse.