Dawn to Dusk to Dawn
Ecliptic Acrostic
1918, Idaho
Eternity, punctuated, when
Cirdadian expectations fail
Lacing horizons with copper hues
In rusty, circumferential manifest
Penumbrae waxing in precarious
Syzygy toward totality
Enabling such pageantry
.
1970 Georgia
Evening creatures take flight
Cicadas, then, sorties of birds
Lulled into the false dusk
In anachronistic lotteries of survival
Pitting consumption against consuming
Struggling katydids and crickets aspire to compete
Embracing the ruse
.
1994, Arizona
Each creature knows, but not why
Confused but directed
Light's fade engages
Instruction sets, ancient
Primevally programmed
Spring Peepers and wood frogs join the chorus
Ears of owls, pivot to hone in
.
2017, Tennessee
Excitement invokes reverent whispers
Cooing, but from the human creatures instead
Losing carats, as the sky's jewel,
Is a diamond on its ring, only beads peaking through
Promiscuous forays into obsidian
Shadow bands' coalescence serves the day, night
Ethereally
.
2024, Vermont
Evocations of antidiluvian fears
Creaming to the top of limbic memories
Lost when science, long ago, methodically
Intercepted superstition from religious codependence
Purging us from the terror of the false dawn
Sol anthropomorphically winking at us
Enlightened from the darkness, we now wink back
***
____________________
Author's Note: this poem, entered into the "In Eclipse" Challenge, has a companion prose piece submitted for Monday, Solar Eclipse Day, April 8, as Day #99 of Story-a-Day Challenge: "The Second Coming."
Title photo was an iPhone panorama I shot during totality in Gallatin City Cemetery in Gallatin, Tennessee, August 21, 2017.
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. In Life Phase II: Living and writing from a decommissioned Catholic church in Hull, MA. Phase I: was New Orleans (and everything that entails).
https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
email: [email protected]
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Comments (7)
I love the creative take on this one Gerard, and how you've used your own experiences to inform how you wrote your entry. Some excellent words in here, and the changed experience across different places and times is a unique touch. "Lulled into the false dusk" is a great line:)
love it!
This was absolutely amazing! I loved the style and the descriptions are colorful. 😍😍😍😍
I have penumbra in my second entry! Snap lol! This was brilliant and I love what you did with it. Way too many amazing lines to mention lol. You are such an elegant, but challenging writer, Gerard. Love the ingenuity at work here!
"the sky's jewel is a diamond on its ring" - I loved that bit! And I love syzygy. I'd forgotten about that word. What a corker 😁
Whoaaaa, this was magnificent! Loved your set of acrostics! Also, I never knew about katydids until today!
You have an admirable way with words! Good luck on the challenge