Yes, eclipses with their threat of permanent loss of light can remind us of how old stories tried to explain and prevent what must have been potentially terrifying.
Total loss of light, total loss of sight...
My poem juxtaposes, perhaps even blends, my experience of eclipse (I draw on the 1999 eclipse which was more powerful) with that of the blinding of an Old Testament hero.
Poor blinded Samson – brought down to Gaza, bound with fetters of brass, forced to grind in the prison house... the focus of derision. Until – 'suffer me that I may feel the pillars, that I may lean upon them' – momentarily empowered once again, he shared his own permanent darkness with his tormentors, bringing the world crashing down upon one and all.
An eclipse to end all eclipses.
I reflect on the exclusion of light – in my case partial and
temporary; in his, total and perpetual.
Two voices, two very different endings.
Birds fall silent at this false dusk.
As circles approach the edges of worlds
collide in a blur of first darkness.
An unusual coolness falls upon us.
You do not need to know the pain
when they were both put out. There is
no darkness to approach that black
when light is lost forever.
Worlds travel on to overlap.
At the centre an oval that grows
a widening eye still out of sight.
Nothing so dark as the pupil itself.
You do not need to see the pillars
as bodies move apart.
I seized them
in a vision of destruction
and in bowing avenged the loss.
The light returns along with warmth.
From ends new starts are made.
Upon the pile of broken stones
a black bird starts to sing.
Beautiful
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