The Almost Normal Day

Speaking for myself, I was feeling inadequate that I couldn’t get excited about the eclipse, nor could I sift or sort through the various End Times possibilities, which had been (in alt media) coordinated with the eclipse, yet were and are un-related.

Once it was near, I felt: “Nothing is going to happen.” But in days prior, I sort of did imagine the grid going down, mass panic, and other tedious things that have become part of the Tyranny of Fearful Possibilities, connecting also to the Tyranny Of Nobody Knowing Anything Much But Many Claiming To “Know.”

I think I issued a little bit of rumor mill loose fear myself, which I regret.

So, when it finally was time…

I was out there in a small West Hartford park, with the glasses, wanting it to be over, but also enjoying just talking to people, and watching children play, and hearing parents tell their children not to look at the sun. A woman offered me some blueberries and we talked about nothing much, which was awesome.

How about some Robert Frost—with one of the best last stanzas I know. (Maybe not “best” but I certainly love it.)

Come In

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.

—Robert Frost