{"id":4344,"date":"2011-08-01T00:10:54","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T05:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=4344"},"modified":"2015-02-16T14:59:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T20:59:37","slug":"early-in-the-day-of-the-solar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/4344","title":{"rendered":"Early In The Day Of The Solar Eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early in the day of the solar eclipse<br \/>\nthe old men who would still tell their names<br \/>\nto soldiers passed time combing their beards<br \/>\nwith their fingers. Dowsers<br \/>\nsought underground rivers. The pumps<br \/>\nall lost prime, and snakes fell<br \/>\nfrom their branches. At midday hens alit<br \/>\nto their roosts. All afternoon the men waited<br \/>\nfor a shave. The barber rinsed his straight razor<br \/>\nin the river. One man in the barber\u2019s hands<br \/>\nfelt someone else\u2019s spirit<br \/>\nlodged low in his throat. He shrieked<br \/>\nand out flew a small black bird.<br \/>\nOut sprang a dark mammal.<br \/>\nOut fell a fish, plop, into the river<br \/>\nand it flickered silver in the red current<br \/>\nand slipped away. The barber took a sip<br \/>\nfrom the bottle. He washed his blade<br \/>\nin the water. His hands shook, but finally<br \/>\nthe straight-backed chairs were empty.<br \/>\nA halo of pale hair trimmings shivered<br \/>\nin the twilight. The barber<br \/>\nsaw the moon\u2019s shadow lying<br \/>\nagainst the backs of the men\u2019s eyes<br \/>\neach like a baby animal not yet awakened<br \/>\nfrom its nest.  Out on the pontoon boats<br \/>\namid drying nets for eel catching,<br \/>\nmy infection worsened. By midnight, I worried,<br \/>\nhe\u2019d be sent to cut off my breast.<\/p>\n<h6><a href=\"\/nashvillereview\/archives\/4418\">Miriam Bird Greenberg<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early in the day of the solar eclipse the old men who would still tell their names to soldiers passed time combing their beards with their fingers. Dowsers sought underground rivers. The pumps all lost prime, and snakes fell from their branches. At midday hens alit to their roosts. All afternoon the men waited for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-184","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10297,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4344\/revisions\/10297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}