Totality

Coatless I gaze

In sullen cold,

A lingering Scorpion

Above my head, a

Wide moon in the fold,

And the every-angled heavens,

Ablaze,

A night to be bold, sure,

Though few could tell,

How solid ground conspired,

To throw terrestrial shade -

The inching darkness,

First a fingernail,

Now a thumbprint

Made,

The ancient glimmering dust,

A reddening pale,

That hangs and floats and howls

To be itself again -

A catcher of dreams

And ark of night.

Beyond the trail

Of stars and dust

The shrouding rust

Declines and fades,

Leaving the porcelain face

Unchanged.

Small mercies, perhaps,

Thinking of how things must go,

Though a billion years of light

Remains.