Leigh Pittenger
Leigh Pittenger is a former religious studies professor who now devotes her time to writing poetry. She resides with her husband and two cats in Louisville, Kentucky.
EASTER DINNER, 2024
Over tender bison pot roast, we discuss the coming eclipse,
where to view it, how the last one felt. How birds go strangely silent
when day pitches black. The word “totality” sounds lofty,
philosophical, calls to mind Levinas’s Totality and Infinity,
which I’ve read but can now barely paraphrase. What makes
eclipses spiritual? The ancients perceived the sun being eaten.
Does fear always shadow awe? My husband, philosopher
and bison chef at the head of the table, talks about space being bent—
something about Einstein, light, and gravity. So much I fail
to understand, given the years I’ve spent examining, not
the nature of space and time, but angels dancing on the head of a pin.
I doubt I can explain what an eclipse is, why it occurs rarely,
or why it occurs at all. Thomas Aquinas supposedly said, near
his life’s end, “All theology is straw.” Scholars debate what he meant.
Had he misspent his life’s attention? Or was he upended,
rendered mute by a vision beyond all telling? Conversation
moves on: job dissatisfaction, insurance woes, difficult neighbors,
the lot. I clear the table, serve dessert: white cake topped
with fruit. I wonder why at mid-life I comprehend so little,
only that Earth tilts and spins, and we spin with it.
