I remember that eclipse. I was still in Los Angeles, and my suburban street, usually empty at night, was busy with wandering pedestrians looking for the best view, and people were watching from their front yards. The moon got quite high before it was fully covered by the Earth's shadow, and I was out until after midnight looking at it. I think that was my favorite lunar eclipse ever.
Tonight it isn't going to be a communal event. The old people around here go to sleep early, and the few younger people have probably gone off to get a better view in some place with fewer trees. The feral cats and I will have the view pretty much to ourselves, unless the bats and night owls and skunks and raccoons are also watching. They probably won't notice, though.
I doubt that the cats will notice, either. They'll just wonder why it was bright and then got dimmer and then got brighter again. In fact I might not see the early part of it myself, even after the moon has cleared the trees, as there might be some clouds in the east tonight. They were fairly thick toward the south this evening, but right now I'm not seeing any stars eastward, so the clouds might have shifted in this direction. I'll be very annoyed if they thicken and conceal the whole event from me.
Anyway, now I'm getting hungry and should go fix something to eat before it gets any later. Seeing the moon devoured is bound to make me hungry, but I won't notice it as much if I've already eaten something myself.
Sunday Verse
The Cat and the Moon
by William Butler Yeats
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
