Eclipse

Eclipse

It is a genuine feeling, to let go of the old prejudice of dying,

And those things that come with the shifting moons.

I can remember, the warming balm as water and dust thrown together

The mercury rising, fading

Yellowjackets on crusty lunchroom boxes.

They were angry at dying, someone said to me, angry at dying

It meant, to me, it meant an all-eclipsing dryness.

I would listen at night hoping to stave off the katydids, as they signaled to me the end of things.

I dreaded that first red turning of the forest wall,

The freezing ground of morning, the cold rides in the tiny truck that smelled of carbon and firewood,

The daily worry of a young man not grown and fearful he will never be,

The uncertainty of seasons  - I wanted things to live, forever, in a straight line.

In September we would ride the horses across the mountain to the old cemetery, and I would

Touch the birth-swelled pods on the edge of the field to feel the 
Insect pop of the seed on my fingertips.

I step over the graves and pray to them; they are timeless things I have always seen.

I lead the horses around them and they crop the still green
Grasses and think of nothing, their eyes a bright stillness late summer hides vibrating with insects, 
Veins under muscle, all feeling the shift of moons.

I watch their chins for the first whiskers of cold, the yellow eggs of botflys, 
And other signs that life will grow,

Again  - In time, I could see that life’s circle was the only true thing, and within it there is no end.

The red inside the leaves is always there.

The yellowjackets will sleep deep in the earth, all of one mind and body.

Their death is only the shedding of old skin  - There is a peace in the dark insectless nights,

In the cold of the moon, tangled in naked fingers, held in false light and waking,

And sad that it will come again, all things eclipsed at evening, uncertain, eternal,

All things moving in endless articulation, 
Peripheral encounters overlapping in widening circles forever.