Though we don’t know exactly why,
we travel from afar just to see it.
We’ll journey a hundred miles. A thousand. Ten
thousand or more. For some reason we don’t understand,
we want to turn our heads
toward the sun and see it slowly disappear, the same way
our hunched Neanderthal ancestors did, when they noticed
a sudden strange moment of night just outside the mouth of the cave.
But we are modern, and civilized. We drive SUVs to Texas or Maine,
find the exact location with our GPS.
In case of a traffic jam, we pack the car with
rations and necessities: water, snacks, and cell phones.
We realize it will not be an easy journey.
It will be almost like a war zone—
those four or five million people
all flocking to the narrow path
where the eclipse
makes its total promise to the sky.
We don’t know exactly why, but something calls us to leave
the bright landscape where we live
and go there, to the land where the sun dims, and, eventually,
surrounds itself
with a thin gold wedding ring.
We’re drawn to that place, a place where we can finally put
our cell phones down, tilt our faces toward the sky,
hold hands with those we love,
and be primitive again, and full of something we don’t understand,
as we escape the world
for those four minutes and twenty-one seconds
of frightening, beautiful darkness.