Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, 21 August 2017<\/i><\/p>\n
On the beach, the waves
\nbreak over laughing children
\nas on any afternoon.
\n\u201cIt’s only one thing passing
\nin front of another,\u201d I say, and you laugh
\nthough we both know better. Anxiously
\nwe scan the heavens.<\/p>\n
We know what to expect. We’ve seen
\nthe pictures, timed it to the second.
\nWe’ve planned this trip for months.
\nWe bought our paper optics early.
\nWe wear our commemorative t-shirts.<\/p>\n
Along the shore, the upturned faces
\nmeasure shadow’s progress, check
\nthe time. Mothers adjust their children’s
\nglasses. Amateur professors
\nlecture barefoot. A girl in a bikini
\nand a welder’s helmet like a
\nnaked stormtrooper stalks
\nthe sand. The man beside us
\nwith elaborate equipment films
\nthe cosmos, as if heaven might be rewound.<\/p>\n
We have not gathered here for mere mechanics.
\nWhat do we seek, we scientific pilgrims?
\nOur eyes blacked out
\nadmit only the brightest marvels. <\/p>\n
Now gray like age
\ndescends without the royal
\ntones of nightfall. Only the sun
\nstill wears its crown, revealed
\nin death. The birds, uneducated,
\nfly for unbuilt dunes, and safety.<\/p>\n
Reluctantly the day
\nresumes. Neighbors disengage,
\nsettle into chairs. The birds
\nturn to their fishing.
\nYou open your novel, I
\nmy crossword, and a beer. Time slips
\nby once more unseen, and we,
\nbaptized by darkness, go on living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, 21 August 2017 On the beach, the waves break over laughing children as on any afternoon. \u201cIt’s only one thing passing in front of another,\u201d I say, and you laugh though we both know better. Anxiously we scan the heavens. We know what to expect. We’ve seen the pictures, timed it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[18],"tags":[645,646,310,324],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8I1ci-totality","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6613,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6612\/revisions\/6613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}