Eclipse meant the end of the world

     when anything was the end:

          drought, flood, bad harvest.

How they startled at the sky

     before leading their best calf

          to early slaughter,

before coupling in the fields, singing

     desperate ancestral songs, 

          shooting flamed arrows at the sun.

A celestial monster captured the stars!

     The sun and the moon made love

          and hid their shy faces!

It is too easy

     to look down at history

          rather than across.

One day the dark swallows the sun 

     and we see its hunger has no end.

          One day the century turns,

and each lit screen threatens: blackout,

     empty vaults, planes plunging

          from the sky.

One day a man breaks

     the speed of light—

          he travels that far away from me.

The secrets loose!

     The sky heartless! All my planets spinning

          off their axes!

But who can blame him? We’re all scared.

     If I had a calf, I would have slaughtered it

          already.