A sunrise, the sun’s course,
a sunset are marvelous to no one because they occur daily. But solar eclipses
are a source of wonder because they occur seldom, and indeed are more marvelous
than lunar eclipses, because these are more frequent. Thus nature shows that
she is not aroused by the common ordinary event, but is moved by a new and
striking occurrence. Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and
follow as she directs.
– Frances Yates, The Art of Memory
6
August: New York Times
On
the morning of August 21,
the
moon’s shadow will appear
over
the Pacific Ocean and move
swiftly
toward Lincoln Beach Oregon,
making
landfall at 10:16 A.M. local time.
If
the morning fog has lifted by then,
and
if the weather is clear,
viewers
will see something in the sky
that
most have never seen:
a
black hole where the sun should be,
and
around the edges sinuous flames
radiating
in all directions.
Stars
and planets will come out,
winds
will shift, birds and bats
will behave strangely, crickets will chirp.
*
I
stood on a crowded beach in Turkey
and
waited until, at the allotted time,
with
a chorus of screams and cheers
and
whistles and applause, the sun
slid
away, and impossibly, impossibly,
we
saw above us a stretch of black sky
and
in the middle of it a hole, blacker
than
anything I’d ever seen, fringed
with
a ring of soft white fire. My heart
jumped
up to my throat, and my eyes
grew
hot with tears. I fell to my knees,
feeling
tiny and huge, and as lonely
as
I’ve ever been, but also astonishingly
close
to the crowds around me.
Totality
– that point of a solar eclipse
when
the sun is entirely covered
by
the moon – is incomprehensible.
Your
mind can’t grasp any of it:
not
the dark, not the sunset clouds
on
the horizon, nor the stars;
just
that extraordinary wrongness,
up
there, that pulls the eyes toward it.
I
stared up at the hole in the sky
and
then at the figures around me,
and
became gripped by the conviction
that
my life was over; that I was
kneeling
in the underworld
with all the shades of the dead.
*
A
260-day Aztec calendar stone
may
depict the death of the sun god Tonatluh
at
the hands of an eclipse monster,
whose claws clutch at human hearts
*
Full
moon in Aquarius, the event now
just
two weeks away, “96% of everything
is
dark (matter or energy); it is sight itself
that
has blinded us to nearly the entire universe”
darkness
keeps us in place dark energy
dark
matter “He reveals mysteries from the
darkness,
And brings the deep darkness into light" (Job 12:22)
God
is Light, yet the scriptures
tell us that
He
makes darkness His secret place.
Oh,
the wonders of God! Who can know His mind?
Let
men pry, but His ways are past finding out,
and
one of those things men cannot find out is
the
mystery of light that comes out of darkness.
9
August
OED: OF eclipse,
esclipse, ad. L. eclipsis, Gr. eclepsis
literally
“to forsake its accustomed place, fail to appear”
which
would imply what matters is that the sun
lets itself get eclipsed, an act of generosity . . .
1.
An interception or obscuration of the light
of
the sun (moon, or other luminous body)
by
the intervention of some other body, either
between
it and the eye, or between the luminous body
and
that illuminated by it; “These late eclipses
in
the Sun and Moone portend no good to us”
2.
obscuration, obscurity; dimness;
loss
of brilliance or splendor, the eclipse
of reason and decency: the eclipse of truth.
*
the
Newport, Oregon police
were
recently alerted to a cat
who
appeared to be armed,
possibly
with a semi-automatic weapon,
who
had situated itself high in a tree
13
August
Solar
and lunar eclipses are significant events
at
a spiritual level. There is an increase in Raja-Tama
which
has negative effects on humanity . . .
the
environment becomes conducive
for
negative energies to amass black energy.
Black
energy is a type of spiritual energy
that
is the primary weapon of attack of ghosts
[who]
utilize their black energy to harm humankind
during
the period of the eclipse
as
well as to sow the seeds of destruction . . .
Of
course shore
wind will dissipate the fog and warm the air,
so
attention to the eclipse-day forecast
will tell whether to stay or whether to move
to an inland trans-mountain location.
What is the meaning of a solar eclipse?
To the ancient Chinese, solar eclipses
meant
that dragons were devouring the sun.
To the Czechoslovakians, they meant that
ice giants,
bitter enemies of the sun, were conquering
it.
To the Romans, they meant that the sun was
poisoned
and dying. To the Jews, solar eclipses meant
that the moon
was passing between the sun and the earth .
. .
Many eras in history have been dark for us.
But during these times, we should remember
that G-ds light has not been extinguished;
it is merely in a state of hester panim,
hiddenness. And just as the sunlight always
emerges
from its eclipse (sigh), so too are all
situations
of hester panim only temporary,
destined to be
followed by the light of G-ds redemption.
Even during the darkness of a solar
eclipse,
all is not entirely in gloom. The sun is
four hundred times further away from us
than the moon, but it is also four hundred
times
larger than the moon (secular scientists
call this
a "grand coincidence") . . . while
the sun
is essentially obscured, shafts of sunlight
may appear around the edge of the moon
as they shine through the mountains
on its surface. When Yosef’s brothers sold
him
to a passing caravan, we are taught that
G-d arranged matters such that the
merchants
would be carrying sweet-smelling spices
instead of their usual foul cargo.
Now, this would appear to be of little
comfort
to Yosef. He had just been betrayed
by his brothers and sold to heathens as a
slave.
What was the consolation in his prison
quarters
having a nice smell? The answer is that
precisely
because this was the lowest point of Yosef’s
life,
G-d wanted to show that He was still with
him.
This minor but significant gesture
strengthened
Yosef’s spirits during his long ordeal.
Such is the message of the shafts of light,
which we perceive during the darkness
of a solar eclipse. They are literally
"rays of hope,"
and they remind us that even during
the dark periods of life, we are to look
for
those small signs that tell us that G-d is
still with us.
15 August, Sacramento Airport, New York
Times Again
a jungle in Mikongo, Gabon
the top of a mountain in Tianhuangping,
China
the frigid wilderness of Svalbard, Norway
and Ferris Jabr’s text: All life on earth
depends on a luminous umbilical cord
eight minutes and 19 seconds long,
the time it takes light to travel here
from the sun. During a total solar eclipse,
this lifeline is temporarily severed.
At the moment of totality, a tide of
darkness
briefly swallows the land. Life responds
instantaneously. Most living things have
biological clocks – constellations of
genes,
proteins and neurons – synchronized
to the sun’s rhythms . . . Earth’s surface
temperature
drops by as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit.
The very chemistry of the air changes.
Certain molecules produced by
light-activated reactions, such as ozone,
suddenly dwindle . . . A total solar
eclipse
is not just the momentary theft of day.
It is a profound interruption of the world
as we know it, all the more terrifying
in its transience. Imagine what would
happen
if we altered the planet’s relationship
with the sun.
An eclipse of our own making.
A new era of twilight with no promise of
dawn.
August 21, 9:36 AM
found a spot near a river
just east of Corvallis
two bikers from Seattle here first
eclipse glasses working
sun about one third occluded
slowly growing from the northeast
at about 1:00 . . . clock metaphors?
river
sun moon
the new moon is the only chance
for the yin principle to assert herself
the world 88% yang
foggy by the coast when we left
we wanted an ocean but this will do
9:45 about 40% covered
the right brain slowly taking over
sweet blackberries elemental
Sara on her cell phone checking
to see how our cat was reacting
conversation with the bikers
9:52 perfect yin-yang circle
balance is not “totality”
zen master shrugs her shoulders
flight home in 3 ½ hours*
watching the river flow
right to left Mahayana
not Hin9ayana holding Sara’s hand
______________________________________
*this line was wild exaggeration
24 August
after
the eclipse
endless
poetry
(the
name of a Jodorowsky movie
but this may be one of those times
that I follow
Marianne Moore’s example
and the movie’s pretty damn good
the singing mother
and
the strawberry cake
hope and no hope
poetry and cynicism
endlessly
recycling
but on the last day
of Endless Poetry
at San Diego theaters
my poetry class got cancelled
for
lack of interest
“it’s not required”
“poets and muses
meet there every night
maybe you’ll find yours”
I really gotta read
Nicanor Parra again
poets don’t explain themselves
after the eclipse
everything was new again
and Orpheus is here too!
love
will always
get corrupted by purity
9“I am not a faggot”
said Enrique Linh
“nor poets into teachers”
adios
poetas
The
Poetics of “Eclipse”
This poem was clearly a collaborative enterprise: joining me,
in addition to the cited and uncited sources here, were writers who had posted
on social media about the forthcoming eclipse, cable news broadcasters, weather
forecasters, baseball commentators and a few people I don’t remember. Indeed, most
of my recent work seems like assemblage, and I remember an earlier poem,
“Against Romanticism,” when I quoted Walter Benjamin:
This work must raise the art
of citing without quotation marks
to the highest level,
its theory most intimately linked
to that of montage.
So perhaps
it was ever thus. Still, it might be one way to navigate our post-truth or
post-fact age, when politics and technology have converged to make the line
between fiction and non-fiction porous indeed. Can any of us be sure what’s
meaningful or meaningless anymore, what’s relevant and irrelevant? David
Shields, in a book I’ve come to value highly called Reality Hunger, wrote “Our culture is obsessed with real events
because we experience hardly any.” And yet we hunger for them. This poem charts
that hunger.
No comments:
Post a Comment