Captain Radio Bob aboard the liesure research vessel Little Queenie. Eclipse expedition, August 21, 2017.

On Monday while Brian Mann was soldiering up the heights of Mount Marcy with eclipse glasses and sound kit, others from the station were embarking from Morristown aboard Radio Bob’s leisure research vessel Little Queenie to experience the eclipse from the downstream end of the Thousand Islands. Here is a poetical postcard.

Pinhole views

Having basked long enough I walk off into
pine shadow, leaving the boys to snorkel
round the boat. The others swap turns peering
into a crude Raisin Bran  box viewer
while moonshadow bites unto the sun.

The dimming light goes strange, like
the golden hour, David says, but not quite.

At the end of Sparrow Island, the anchor
of the Lillie Parsons trails its chain into
dancing water. Standing there, I picture
the squall, the chancy currents where
she grounded in 1877, the chain leading
65 feet below to where her 500 tons of coal
were strewn like dark stars across the bottom.

I project the eaten sun through the lattice
of my fingers; through the lattice of the past,
this pinhole view into space and time,
I watch the schooner break upon the rocks.