[totality]

words by Hannah Shen, art by Katherine Shi

a slow    

                     [inevitable]

plunge into darkness

          a frost lingering in the air

       birdsong stilled

                    breaths paused

gazes cast in fear

as if the very fabric of the 

world is

un

    -spooling

the light

dimming

‍ ‍ dimming

‍ ‍dimming ‍

‍ ‍dimmi— ‍ gone.

the Sun-Devourer [whose epithets

          from our lips flow]

      approaches now—

do you hear It in the unnatural silence

        [the Portent of Evil]

        do you taste Its chill             suffusing your heaving lungs

[the Harbinger of Calamity]

‍careful, now.

the Sun-Devourer, [this Heaven-Sent Omen]

It smells your fear,

[the Beast of Sin]

          It hears the tremble in your hands

the stutter in your step

‍ ‍come, listen— ‍ —there.

do you hear the beating of our drums,

the booms of firecrackers?

do you hear the ringing of our gongs,

our voices rising together in cacophony?

the Sun-Devourer trembles;

 it is

    no match for us, joined together.

there!

do you see its tail tucked in, its ears flattened?

    it is no match for us,

‍ ‍see as it releases its engulfment of the Sun—

see as the night brightens little by little;

‍ ‍[the devourer has retreated.]

come, let us celebrate, let us rejoice,

                             let us remember—

this day of two dawns, of

        disappearance 

                                  and of resurgence

                 of disquiet and reverence in the

unknown

of the world in which we

inhabit.