Transit 11 11.

• Author: Barya, Mildred Kiconco

She appears like a blot of blood waltzing across the Sun's face, daring and steady the movement she makes--the movement that marks Mercury's transit between Earth and the Sun. We would go blind to look without protecting our eyes. Fear of trespassing cascades down my spine and spills into the ground decorated with yellow and red remembrances of veterans, and around the tree trunks, their blood and service. Today we remember our loved ones who dared to look the enemy in the eye, who knew protection by putting their lives on the line, gone like mercury in the hot sands of history. Thirteen years from now, this tiny body in the sky will step on the giant blood orange again, unafraid. The fire she crosses will not consume her. Flesh of her flesh unburned. We are told she shrinks but it's not her time to die in the flames. She will return to remind us that she'll outlive us. I look into the sky and pray to remember the significance of this moment, this event coinciding...