FIRST ECLIPSE
A full eclipse, they told us:
bit by bit, a feeble daytime moon
will efface the sun, enfold us
in a counterfeit of night at noon.
Around the edges of the lunar disc
a crown of fire will burn so bright
that scrutiny by naked eye would risk
blindness. Thrilled, we learned that light
that violent must be sifted
through a darkened lens. And so
the grownups stood about, eyes lifted,
penitents in sunglasses who know
the world’s about to end. Meanwhile,
we children lay in long grass, sharing
out the negatives I’d brought – a pile
of family snaps from home. Pairing
them up like playing cards, I dealt,
choosing for myself a glossy square
of clouds on a bright black day, and knelt
(like a penitent) to outstare
the slow mutating sun. Indistinct
at first, but then, from partial darkness,
bold and clear, Mum and Dad, arms linked,
strode out of their past. The starkness
of that moment’s image – of their smug duality
before my birth – was blinding and I dropped
my hand. Lost in eclipse, I couldn’t see
where light began or where the darkness stopped.
12:29:44 AM 
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