Artist Moon

What to write?

Do I journal? Do I memoir? Do I allow my consciousness to stream?

Stream. Streams. Creeks. Rivers which flow to oceans that cover the globe.

After the moon left its US orbit yesterday, it made its way across the Atlantic.

Right after the eclipse-peak, as I walked across the street for a momentary visit to my house, I felt enveloped by the aura surrounding me. I felt a stillness in the air, but not a stuffy stillness, entwined with a feeling of emotional warmth. Time seemed to slow down, almost stand still.

I've felt this before. When?

Dusk? Yes, but it's more specific than that.

Ahh. It's like the strange time of autumn where seasons seem melded but separate. What is that called?

This morning my brain remembered, Indian summer! That's what it felt like yesterday.

I enjoyed viewing the eclipse, though I would loved to have witnessed totality. We got 95%, which is pretty good. But nothing like totality as I realized while viewing the running images on C-Span yesterday.

My neighbor, whom I work for part-time in his miniature art studio, had a small eclipse party for folks working yesterday. There were five of us altogether.

Right before and during peak, the crickets became more vocal. Cicadas and tree frogs chimed in. Birds chirped, bedding down. Exactly at the peak moment, there was a scuffle in the air. It startled us,"What the hell was that?" Four crows were chasing away a hawk, perhaps from a crow's nest? A serendipitous oddity. I thought of my crow thoughts from this past January.

Right after peak, as I walked out the tall, slat-wood gate that exits my neighbor's backyard, I hollered, "Wow! Ya'll come see this! Really, come look!"

They made their ways over to see the crescent, scalloped slivers of light inside shadows on the ground. They were as wowed as I was. I didn't have my phone, so I took mental snapshots.

Trekking poles in hand, I made my way up and across my neighbor's lawn and into the street. As I crossed the blacktop feeling the definitive stillness surrounding me, my eyes caught an abundance of crescents within deciduous tree shadows on the pavement. I stopped, entranced, my eyes scanning the image.

The crescents had turned the shadows of leafy trees into an appearance of evergreens.