“A Monday moment; time stands still:
Semester’s main attraction;
A midday midnight madness made
From orbital infraction.
Crowd celebrates and congregates in
Spring term’s prime distraction:
A learning goal unparalleled…
Eclipsing interaction.”
The 8 April 2024 Twitter poem continued the previous day’s theme; this verse celebrated the actual day of the Spring 2024 total solar eclipse, visible across much of the midwestern USA.
I enjoyed the interdisciplinary focus of such a major event, reading several essays that highlighted the unforgettable nature of such a day, as with Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse.” I also had not been aware until the spring of just how many times Emily Dickinson noted solar eclipses in her prolific work, and I was glad to learn more. One of her verses in particular vividly centered the jarring arrival of totality, beginning:
“Sunset at night — is natural — /
But sunset on the Dawn /
Reverses nature — Master— /
So midnight’s — due — at Noon —”
This post title uses a variation on Dickinson’s fourth line here; the essay is intended to give the day of the eclipse more of its deserved attention (i.e., midnight’s due) than the April poem alone could.
“A Monday moment; time stands still: /
Semester’s main attraction…”
This Monday had been on my mental calendar for a while, since seeing a partial solar eclipse early in the 2017-2018 academic year. I had wished I could make the trek to totality during August 2017, and so I anticipated seeing the phenomenon in person until and through 2023-2024. It was striking at a busy semester’s close to watch everyone take the same pause to observe the once-in-a-lifetime sight; afternoon meetings were canceled for an hour, and buildings were empty, as we all looked to the sky.
“A midday midnight madness made /
From orbital infraction…”
Totality was nearer the prosaic hour of 3 p.m., but I can rarely resist reaching for alliteration. The “orbital infraction” was a periphrastic take on the eclipse itself, highlighting the way in which the orbit of the Earth around the sun and the orbit of the Moon around the Earth intersected so fortuitously.
“Crowd celebrates and congregates in /
Spring term’s prime distraction… /
A learning goal unparalleled… /
Eclipsing interaction.”
The ending lines linked the historic sight (the “prime distraction”) to… chemistry vocabulary!
When a molecule rotates in three-dimensional space, it is possible that some of its atoms can occasionally block one another, incurring an energetic penalty via an “eclipsing interaction,” described in detail in this entry. The same phrase came to mind, with a much more human-focused interpretation, as I watched groups congregate on this Monday, both on campus and nearby, via conversations and encounters facilitated on a predictable-yet-astonishing afternoon.
Chemphasis 