Not A Sunset

When I stood on the cold sand, feeling dusk make the air heavy with shadow, I looked into the sky and did not see a sunset.

I saw an impudent bronzed eye peering through a tattered hem the color of a bruise.  I saw a gleaming pearl, with grasping, purple fingers brushing against it.  I saw pillows of violet froth, ethereal and melting, their edges warmed by the furnace blistering below them.  I saw the golden pea hidden beneath layers of amethyst mattresses and imagined the sleepless princess tossing and turning above them.

I saw plum velvet from the Mauve Age.  I saw gilded borders from the Gilded Age.  I saw gold tissue from a Renaissance bodice.

I saw the shapes and recesses of lavender storms and indigo vapors - living mists blown from a distant shore - that collected thickly around the sinking, tired star.

I did not see a sunset.

So - annoyed perhaps that I did not appreciate its dust molecules, atmospheres, barometers and temperatures - the sunset scowled blackly, dashing its colors on the dark horizon.  It sank beneath the waves, to warm the coral grottos, the hidden fields, and to light a way for the submerged populations.

Fabric Of The Sky