My Solar Eclipse

A solar eclipse

Only directly viewable in America, how fitting.

The rest of us must make do

With images from social media and news sites

Note: I live in a stars and stripes bedecked echo chamber.

Of Trump fans from Ohio and Colorado,

And all along the modern, rebranded

‘Path of Totality.’

Looking up, in those silly glasses

Note: Google Glass failed because people looked silly.

Like a cinema crowd in the shade of

Godzilla’s foot, about to be squashed.

 

Hotels are sold out along the path of totality

And car park spaces are filling up fast.

An hour south in the path of near-totality

A hotelier rues the buzzing of a single fly in the Reception,

And his place in the universe.

It reminds me of that brilliant Simpsons episode

With the Monorail –

“The cosmic ballet goes on.”

I realise now that the most poignant moment in my poem

Comes courtesy of a satirical cartoon.

This probably says a lot about me,

But I refuse to read into it.

 

I was 7 or 8 when the solar eclipse happened for me.

Summertime, a football camp in the park, builders nearby

Gave us pieces of dark green glass to look through.

The black ball passing by the light,

An image forever tinged green in my memory.

4 or 5 seconds each, then pass it on.

After, back playing football,

I stopped now and again to squint up,

The same way Trump did in the picture

Which went viral

And was shared by all those annoying

Comedians and liberals

Whom I follow.

 

Questions raised:

What do the flat-Earther’s think is happening?

Is the Tara Brooch a depiction?

What was the impact on solar energy?

I’m not going to look up any of the answers;

I prefer to just think about them fleetingly

For the next week or so.

 

NASA sent images from the ISS

Of the moon’s shadow on the USA

And everybody went OMG.

While Netflix said “Well played, moon.”

As they lost some viewers for 2 minutes -

Now Trending: The Man in the Moon, the film ‘Moon’, and Apollo 13.

For the first time now I consider

Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’

Maybe I’ll play it on Spotify after writing this,

Sincerely trying to gain deeper meaning,

But no doubt just feeling a bit stupid.

 

Partial eclipse was visible from France and

The Canary Islands, but we’ll leave this out

… for dramatic effect.

 

In summary:

The moon is big

The sun is bigger

And we are very small.

 

Orbs in the ether…

I’m thinking of snooker,

I haven’t played in so long.

Paranoia kicks in a little,

And The Truman Show comes to mind,

The orchestration of the world, I guess.

I look up from my laptop (but keep typing)

And look out at the sunny blue sky bedecked in clouds;

An urge to punch it and break through –

Thank you eclipse for giving my micro-mind macro thoughts,

I hope it’s done the same for those across the pond.

 

Ideally one would be standing atop a hill, glasses on, looking up,

As twilight fell and the sun set quickly, almost mechanically,

Tinging the horizon an orange/pink/purple.

A single shiver up the spine as it got dark and cold,

And then it would pass, everything slowly returning to normal.

 

Experience over, the person looks down (you look up)

And continues with their day.