My story is just personal and that is what matters to me. The solar eclipse Monday is covered historically, scientifically, and worldwide in print, videos, and specific comments on line and passed by word of mouth. You who read ahead look for three parts. Next paragraph is my first viewing in my 87+ year. Last paragraph is one of those poems I keep in my heart and a spiritual response. All else fill in is up to you.
The 4 minute total eclipse was the first in the United States since 2017. It would come over Texas Hill country at a time and location where a son and I could easily be viewers, so we circled the day and waited. Driving to the ranch where a relative had a spare bedroom was easier than we planned. Monday morning we had visiting time and were joined by more relatives bringing three younger boys, so we had lots of discussions about using glasses properly to not be blinded for life. The cloudy day dampened hopes for a perfect viewing, but after an early lunch we headed for a high point to wait and hope. Sure enough, about 1:37 p.m., darkness began building, birds quit singing, a break appeared in cloud cover and the airplane warning light some twenty miles away began flashing. Various members of our group commented breathlessly , “Ohh.” I couldn’t keep my balance and my glasses and find the proper quadrant to follow the process. Finally, the son just said, “Look now!” My eclipse of 15 seconds was the perfect corona, an impressive blink worth remembering.
Next, my poem. Around the world, eclipse seen or unseen, life went on. At some time all may come to the end. At even that moment, we may have a task to complete.
- ‘T was on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell, —
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
The crater’s sides from the red hell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.
Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
“It is the Lord’s Great Day! Let us adjourn,”
Some said; and then, as if with one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. “This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord’s command
To occupy till He come. So at the post
Where He hath set me in His providence,
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, —
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles.” And they brought them in.
I’m not scientific. I can name the planets, yet cannot image far-flung space. I only know that even the closeness of the moon and the brightness of the sun affirm my belief in God who can direct a journey to allow a passing of one that blocks the light of the other, leaving an image as a life time gift for me to see.
Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!You have set your glory
in the heavens.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
Psalm 8: 1, 4,5
Let Me Tell Ya 