The day the world reversed we were quiet; the rooftop was waiting. Each of us just tiny vessels of stardust looking up for the big, round invisible.
The mid-day sunset hugged us closer, like a cloak. A rainbow ribbon appeared at our horizon and the shadow came on fast but gently. The breeze, a reprieve from the heat, rippled through on the current of a lone bat.
Then, without a sound, the moon was there -- graceful, black, perfect.
I took off my glasses and there she perched, like a pinhole in the universe with a silver halo she wore well. It was as if all the earth converged on this dot, hinged on the ability for us simple eyes to, for once, look together where we were meant to.
[Audible gasps.]
She stayed just long enough to whisper, maternal, something words can only at best pretend to. In this place, sensing our fathomless space, we would be OK.
The Great American Eclipse, 2017.
