Behind the Photo Contest — Edition 5

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Sunset is magical. But what I, especially, love is the enchanting twilight that follows it.

It was my first time visiting Peru & we were lucky to be staying right across from the water.

One evening stroll, as the light was fading, I saw this bird that looked like it was sitting on the setting sun!

I was reminded of a line from a poem by Tagore:

“Alas," cried the caged bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky.

I wasted no time in capturing this poetic image on my iPhone & even tried doing so from a few angles —- so that the bird was framed in the center of the sun & the branches hardly there...

Then, before you knew it, the bird took off and disappeared into the sky. Quickly, I snapped away and managed to capture that, too, as well as the changing light and a gentle breeze playing on the surface of the mesmerizing water, like it was a harp.

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Contemplating this enchanting hour — with its sense of exhalation, release all possibilities and healing — put me in a calm, meditative state. Here’s a poem I wrote:

Sunset

Sunset is a gentle master to all that are stricken
patiently, teaching us how to melt a bruise away
Watch how, with a silver whisk, that cracked egg
of a setting sun is majestically stirred, and put to rest

Violent violet, pining pink, and yelling yellow
all agitated, then muted, their differences reconciled
Until all that remains is a faint tattoo of quiet hurt
pearlescent wisps of smoke from a sighing flame

that night, stealthily, smothers and hushes away…

©Yahia Lababidi

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And, in keeping with the bird theme, here’s evocative street art from Lima, Peru that I also took a picture of on this trip, and which somehow echoes my encounter with that sunset bird...

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With many thanks to @appreciator for sponsoring this lovely @behindthephoto contest as well as the jurors: @nelyp and @johan.norberg

I do hope that my entry conveys to you some of the Beauty that I experienced.