The darkness happens gradually and then all of the sudden.
For an hour, the sky almost imperceptibly dims, a gradual drawing of curtain across the bright early spring. Then the totality makes itself known, first by the cheers of people in the distance, early in the path, then by the sudden appearance of night where there should be day. A black disc, surrounded by fire, stands where the sun should be, and hangs there for much longer than you think is possible. A corona of orange and twilight wraps around the horizon, and stars and planets appear where clouds and blue sky should have been.
Until, just as suddenly as night fell, day breaks.
I don’t have anything especially poetic or profound to say. It is simply beautiful to experience, and I hope everyone reading gets the opportunity to live through a totality. It is a difference of kind, not just of degree, form a partial eclipse. And you cna understand why people who did not have the math or the observations to know one was coming would be awed by the event. For those of us lucky enough to understand the physics, it is s reminder of just how inspiring the natural world remains.