Poem: Maurice's Campground

Maurice’s Campground

Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia

to see the total eclipse of the sun.

-          “You’re So Vain,” Carly Simon 

Will we ever know who Carly was singing about?

One man? Three? More than three?

It doesn’t really matter, does it. 

What matters is the walk through the dunes

Back from the beach to Maurice’s campground

On that early evening in July 1972. 

How the sun’s light, extinguished in Nova Scotia

But only partially shadowed here on the Cape,

Grew dimmer as false twilight descended. 

How the dune birds stopped singing,

And how the hawk,

Reacting to the approaching darkness, 

Swooped down in the fading light and

Taloned the skittering mouse

Who’d made a fatal mistake. 

What matters is what happened earlier

In the sand with the ocean nearby

When love had its way 

When we were briefly invisible,

Our ardor sheltered by the incessant

Sound of waves crashing on the shore. 

We remember this in the silent half-light

As we walk back to the campground,

As the hawk, rising above the sandy path, 

Its prey firmly grasped,

Levels off,

Flies into the eclipse.