Perspectives on the Setting Sun

I

The blue retreats into the dark –
The planet’s orbit makes the sun
Appear to disappear beyond
The edge of the earth until one
Last sliver slips from its blue bond
To the sky, the moon its one mark.

II

The lovers sit beside the lake
And watch the sun slip behind trees
That border the distant shore.
The colors dazzle them and please
Them into love – they each adore
The other – their hearts rise, awake.

III

The sun sets on the horizon,
The extra atmosphere the light
Must shine through now stretches and spreads
The light from white to shades of bright
Rose, spreading the sky in light reds,
Clouds in purples by the dozen.

IV

The sunset on our love today.
You left me before you left me,
I know you never had your heart
With mine. Why did you want to flee
From all I wanted to impart
To you? Why can’t we find a way?

V

The scattered sunlight shines too bright –
The setting sun is all I see
Through the windshield of my old car.
I cannot see for the bright glare
I clipped the runner at the knee –
Her blood was redder than the star
That killed her with my blinded sight.

VI

I fear the coming setting sun,
The darkness that it will herald
In, my darkest night, a new moon
That, on the other side, has pulled
Down my tides to their lowest tune –
The moon and sun eclipsed, as one.

VII

How do you skip from orange to blue?
The atmosphere’s not like a cloud –
The spectrum’s missing the middle.
An absent center’s been allowed
To make this evening a riddle
And a mirror of all that’s true.

VIII

Blessèd Ra once rose high above
The Nile flowing brown and green
Past the sphinx and the pyramids.
But Ra has set, too pale and lean,
As all the gods who lost their bids
To the hawk disguised as a dove.

IX

From the space station window I
Look out at the planet I love
Now that I see it from this place
We built to orbit high above
The rest of man, first foot in space –
The sun sets, a bright, sparkling eye.