H(eye)ku

An eclipse poem

(written 2012)

Just the two of us
Not yet looking up. Waiting
for totality.

Lunar or Solar
Never can quite remember
What kind of eclipse.

Now, she says. Look now.
And we look. Pupils enlarge.
No words. Just seeing.

A hole. A halo
of fire surrounding a void
Impenetrable.

The Sun is the same
size as the Moon in the sky
she says. Why is that?

(Above and below
said Hermes Trismegistus
are one and the same)

Exactly the same
How in the world could that be?
What are the chances?

I don’t know, I say.
Just chance. Randomness. Blind luck.
Like everything else.

Do you wonder why
we are here, she says, right now?
watching this unfold?

Sun, Moon, you, me, us?
Each one aligned perfectly
In time and in space?

Just because we are
I want to say. But I don’t.
Because it’s ending.