For decades newspaper cartoonists have laboured for metaphorical links between the Melbourne Cup and the US election that fell on the same Tuesday in November. This stanza labours a link between astronomical and political.
November verse 6: Eclipse Here the streets were full of gazers, faces to the shadowed moon. No pyrotechnics to amaze us: cosmic lightshow, gone too soon. A woman said, 'It's good so many came outdoors, when there's Sweet Fanny Adams profit to be made, just heaven's bodies on parade.' But over there the lines of voters braced themselves for Thunderdome (though far too many stayed at home). The climate, SCOTUS, former POTUS: stakes are high this northern Fall – this Tuesday’s poll could doom us all.
Me fail? I fly! 