Reviewed on 1/15/2026
★★★★★
I watch how,/ for a few moments, immeasurable heat fakes a surrender.
Another Eclipse Poem juxtaposes the restrained portrayal of science with the sublime magnificence of human curiosity. Contextualized in a “PBS documentary,” Queen takes us on a cinematic time journey. She photographs Edmond Halley and his saros cycle, a historical montage with mystical textures. “A dance of knowledge & perseverance” in the face of eclipses manifests how humans’ sense of cosmic wonder is grounded in creative imagination; through physical arts, we illuminate the romantic spirit of the vast land and sky.
Queen then returns to her surroundings in “infinitesimal Virginia,” contrasting cosmic infinity with the mundane of human existence. She continues by emphasizing the universe’s immense power, indifferent to human vulnerability. The breakable “rope,/ twig, hair strand, any muscle, any bone” foregrounds the unavoidable limitations of human inquiries. Even when scientists [can] make/…3-D capture of space weather,” we are still looking “through a makeshift pinhole.” Queen reflects how humans and universe coexist, sitting with “sun at my back, on the patch of earth I rent.” The poem infuses our everyday landscape with attentivenss to the cosmic undercurrents that support our humble living. As “immeasurable heat fakes a surrender,” science becomes a calm yet powerful praise of our bare and impermanent life.
Full Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/1740129/another-eclipse-poem
Leave a Reply