It’s probably just the way
the trees cast awkward shadows
in the strange diminished light,
but if we’re talking totality,
this was my last eclipse.

The short run of this much-hyped
celestial show is over,
and any repeat or revival
is thirty years or so away,
but even as the curtain closed

and the wild birds fell silent
before it slowly opened up again,
I swear I could sense
another kind of darkening
already starting to come on.