The Mushroom Moon

"Seeing this black body was like seeing a mushroom cloud. The heart screeched. The meaning of the sight overwhelmed its fascination. It obliterated meaning itself. If you were to glance out one day and see a row of mushroom clouds rising on the horizon, you would at once that what you were seeing, remarkable as it was, was intrinsically not worth remarking. No use running to tell anyone. Significant as it was, it did not matter for a whit. For what significance? It is significance for people. No people, no significance. This is all I have to tell you. "

This short passage stood out to me in many ways. Before this assignment, I had already highlighted the passage since I knew it was important. In these few lines, the author goes into detail about how she felt about the total eclipse. When reading the first lines, I immediately thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the atomic bomb. When they were dropped, these bombs created a mushroom-like cloud. Since then, such cloud shape has been used in literature to instill fear, much like I saw here. She also mentions how the sight alone was enough to overwhelm her with fascination. However, she continues on to say that many people, if they were to see this "mushroom cloud," they naturally would not think much of it and carry on, despite the extraordinary sight.
I think that Dillard's goal in writing this passage is to show that only certain things have real significance, and even then, it mostly depends on who you ask. This total eclipse was astonishing to Dillard, whereas someone else just mentioned it as "a Life Saver in the sky."
I really like how she related the significance to the ordinary person. She remarks that people created significance, and without people, significance would not exist. On the contrary, I dislike how she ends this passage. Dillard ends with "This is all I have to tell you." But considering its position in the essay, why would she say all she wants to say right in the middle of it? Why wouldn't she leave this passage until the end?