Total Solar Eclipse

After my mother disappeared into the dark
The moon obscured the sun.
Her umbra cast a lunar veil over the Earth.

I walked the liminal way
As subterranean, terrestrial and celestial worlds merged.

Beside Dream Lake
I laid down a blanket
And watched the land lose its color.

I unpacked a picnic and I unpacked my mother’s urn.
Holding my baby daughter
I sang to the Great Mother.
I sang to my dead mother.
“Om Shreem Matre Namaha, Namaha”

I scattered handfuls of my mother’s cremated remains
Around a stone circle and into a small crevasse.
The earth swallowed her daughter
Then the realms began to separate.

The spheres shifted.
Bright crescents decorated my clothing and dazzled the ground.
The moon gave birth to the sun
And summer was born again from the dark.

Catherine Brooks, 2021