The Eclipse

—by Peter Crews

A solitary farmer threaded his way along the path,
Wrapped in the silence of his thoughts,
And part of the pervading quietness.
I knew that where I'd come the birds would congregate,
A clump of trees around the clay bed of a dried up pond;
A sort of seasonal oasis, now in the path of totality.
One of those monuments to lost endeavour
Of a predecessor provided a seat,
A cracked cistern deprived of its source.
As a shadow began to mask the sun,
A chilling breeze rustled the palm fronds.
A flock of egrets flew in and settled quietly in the trees,
Until the returning light revived their restlessness.
For the second time that day, a second dawn,
They flew off against the pale pink sky,
Back to their feeding grounds,
Matching the pattern of their lives only to the sun.
Daylight revealed the farmer pursuing his uninterrupted way,
Now close by the pond, with apparent unconcern;
But I wondered, long after,
What was the impact on his mind
Of what he saw, or did not see.
Was he wiser than the birds?
Or was it an unquestioning fatality
That caused him to accept
What only God could understand?