Thoughts on a Sunset

It’s moments like these I wish would never end. 

The sky would never fade into the dark. 

The sea would never storm.

The news would never catastrophize,

people would never be

led astray. 

Led into hopelessness.

But like the tides, 

thoughts seem to circulate back

into the darkness,

back

to the storms,

back

to the droughts, 

back into despair,

in doing so wraping ourselves up

Into the floods and heatwaves.

Even I, who squints for light on this fading horizon,

painfully

focuses on what this moment will be,

versus what it is now.

Sun slipping into sea and casting last light into sand,

turning tide pools molten gold.

Already feeling the pain of it vanishing.

I am glad

I stay, even on a moonless night.

To think of grasping the hope 

of far-off starlight.