I sit on the dock watching the last glimmer of sunset
fade just the way lightning flashes over the mountains
silenced by distance and if you tell anyone to look
it is too late so my sunset was gone but that’s not it
a few frogs singing several miles across in the weedbed
a bat or two picking off breakfast an otter lounging one last time
soft lapping of a long watery tongue under the pilings
a bonfire glitters on the far shore soft voices reach to lull me
an aimless reverie takes me from sparks flicking into the sky to
tucking little ones into bed ” ‘Night, Daddy. Can I have the light on?”
and then I’d cast my spell on the room banish all monsters
and surprisingly we could go outside in peace and look up at our star
open a book, write, look across the water at the astonishing
chiaroscuro so beautiful it was a cliché as all sunsets are
and so I sit here remembering all that is gone
and finding the star we always looked at a little blurred.
