The dead can look at the eclipse.
I stand with my back to the sun,
a shoebox viewer and pinhole
for the shadow play in miniature.

The moon crept across the sun
as though God were inserting
a nucleus into a cell, implanting
renewable energy in the solar engine.

My dead brother wept for the light,
while our loving mother,
radiant through darkness,
offered solace to her dead sons.

At the limits of lunar mass,
trans-elementation complete,
vultures lift off the sun’s rim
as though from the tree of life.

My son steals through the door like a thief.
I sit at my old desk listening to him leave.
My hand is about to write a line of poetry
That disappears before I can put it down.

The tree gave up its branches like wildfire.
It gave up its fruit like rain.
It did a last wind dance and collapsed,
Bird nests flying.

At that instant, I saw the tree hover,
Rooted just above the ground.
The insubstantial tree crashed down,
Thunder padding the empty sound.