“…brought to dazzling eclipse refulgence…”
–Will Alexander, “A Nexus of Phantoms”
This comes from the NASA website:
The last lunar eclipse of 2010 is especially well placed for observers throughout North America. The eclipse occurs at the Moon’s descending node in eastern Taurus, four days before perigee…
Penumbral Eclipse Begins: 05:29:17 UT Partial Eclipse Begins: 06:32:37 UT Total Eclipse Begins: 07:40:47 UT Greatest Eclipse: 08:16:57 UT Total Eclipse Ends: 08:53:08 UT Partial Eclipse Ends: 10:01:20 UT Penumbral Eclipse Ends: 11:04:31 UT
And in the spirit of things, here is a poem from Ed Roberson‘s wonderful new book To See the Earth Before the End of the World, which was just published by Wesleyan University Press:
LUNAR ECLIPSE
You’ve seen only a planed circle of moon,
the white wafer; the low sky’s flat penny
grow into that dime, flipped in the turn
taken by the earth,
until you see
what’s won from behind its veil of brightness
by the lunar eclipse
a red marble,
a pinball of blood and it’s your shot, a ball
of red clay before its pinch into a bowl,
what I want to say and its look
that far away from it.
I want to say it suddenly
turns three dimensional with shadow
shaded in at the drawn
earth-curtain’s darkening;
and that darkness
makes shape-informed light clearer rounding out
midnight, and moon,
once it is that lighted ball,
falls above a night now floored with depth
so dark above you you can feel the feet
and meter fill with time. New Years confetti each
speck’s fall a galaxy ago back into space.
Space back into space restored beneath the moon
to here in the shading of eclipse. The distances.
We have to feel the spatial in what we see
to see clearly the eye measure in hands and feet;
as when we kiss,
distance disappears, our eyes close,
and we see bodily
in raised detail
a measure deepen into our world
in each other. And what we are
in the shadow the world makes
of our love, by this earth shine, we see
ourselves whole, see in whole perspective.
Michael Leong is the author of the poetry books e.s.p., Cutting Time with a Knife, Who Unfolded My Origami Brain?, and Words on Edge. His creative work has been anthologized in THE &NOW AWARDS 2: The Best Innovative Writing, Best American Experimental Writing 2018, and Bettering American Poetry, Volume 3. His co-translation, with Ignacio Infante, of Vicente Huidobro’s long poem Sky-Quake: Tremor of Heaven is forthcoming from co•im•press in late 2019. His critical monograph Contested Records: The Turn to Documents in Contemporary North American Poetry is forthcoming from the University of Iowa Press in May 2020. He has received grants from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts.
December 20th, 2010…10:07 p.m., May 2, 1966…Taurus
Fore all that vision…fore all that perceive…fore all that know…of all conceived…
Fore thus four days…from now will come…of earth perigee … A date which holds…a numptial event… that most in NA do not forget…
See the calendar…see the event…fore what unfolds…you will not forget. An author to embark…on all to accept. One of newness…a one of all…a one of lunar…nucleus…and all.
Mechelle…”I AM WHO I AM”