“Here, take these glasses,” said she,
When I said I can’t see the Totality.
Still seeing only darkness,
I mumbled to myself, “Why I still can’t see it, even with these?”
I turned around, but she disappeared, like she was never there.
“I see what you mean,” I thought.
I was looking not at the sky, but at the people around me,
My blackness was the Totality for them,
Their whiteness was the Totality for me.
“Maybe we need shades,” I wondered.
Like those children wore over there.
I wrote this on August 21, 2017, on the very day of the Totality. Reposting today, with minor edits, because today, April 8, 2024, we are witnessing a total solar eclipse.
Featured image: Be Colourful by Shadi Ghadirian, 2006. Via Wikiart.org
