Sunset

Is so much more than gold-lit treetops above the pines.

Like an arresting figure drawing near, I’m hesitant to describe, 

sundown absorbs all the likely adjectives in its saturated demise.

There is light, though not the “bright white” of those curly electric bulbs,  

a dull, diffuse, dusty light found where surplus objects are sold.

There’s that pink in the sky remarked by parents’ sighs on the 

evening of another day.

There’s the still blue sky, house hues darkening on the rise,

the kind of light felt in dreams without color or warmth,

a wholly other substance, the view beyond the frame.

There’s the light left in the living room, the reflected light on the chair,

on the slats and the edge of the leather seat while other objects disappear. 

There are layers of darkening trees, a searing ribbon of gold sky,

a purpling of indigo and pink and stunning aqua to the east.

I move through darkening rooms to catch the light’s distant fire, 

as a witness to a burning savannah, in a country never traveled. 

Still there is the light, a fire’s embers burning,

a smoky grey surrounds what’s left, the baby blue has died, 

the aqua’s gone, all features dimmed, a trace remains of proof of day 

when streetlamp lights my window.

© Mary E. Burns, 2015

Riebeis, Austria ~ evening
Photo by Stefan Mayrhofer
from Wikimedia Commons