Winter Sunset

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The sun is low in the West.
Just at the moment when it touches the horizon,
it appears vast,
a massive orb of fiery salmon color
against the evening sky.
The barren trees of winter
stand between me and the sun,
their leafless branches weaving together,
forming a dense web
just above the line of the hillside
like a stiffly starched collar of black lace
rising upward from the bosom of the earth.
The orange sun, glowing between the filigree of trees,
emphasizes that frilled pattern with its molten lava brilliance,
breathtakingly penetrating the spans between the dark branches.

The sky behind the sun
is a mass of brilliant pigment.
There are no clouds to snatch the colors
and twist them into variegated tones
as found on the artist’s palette
when he mixes over and over,
looking for the perfect hue.
Rather the color spreads away
from the vivid glob of orange and pink
as if drawn by the artist’s knife across the board,
becoming gradually fainter
until it begins to blend with the muted blue of the late day sky,
and creating a color unique to this moment.
No beginning and no end to the colors.
They are simply there,
an indescribable and wonderful vision
to end the close of day with flourish
and marking it unique in the never-ending
march of sunsets through centuries.


Then, in only a few short moments,
the sun, that titanic globe of wonder,
slips beyond the hillside
and the light quickly fades.
The darkness that was the tangle of empty tree limbs
only a breath earlier,
now wraps around everything in sight
and grows deeper
until it all is black.

I bid good-parting to the day.
I have no choice.
But already I am planning
to be here at sunset
tomorrow.

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