Friday, May 6, 2016

“Sundown” by David Pring-Mill, Frequent Contributor


Sundown
David Pring-Mill

There is no longer finality
to sundown.

I imagine that once
it meant so much more.
A true deprivation,
for a world postponed.

Old forms emerged
with windborne seeds;
new ones conspire
with nuts and bolts.

Electric salvation
spelled the end
of that special sovereignty,
A sundown of all sundowns!
The unalterable facts
of life
revealed themselves
to be alterable, as ideas
were stripped bare, before
searching minds.

So dandelions, glow! like silver tufted
mini-suns, charged up
as one shaft of cosmic cleverness,
for this moment, selects the hillside,
to target with affection.
Near haystack rock,
one golden wave, slipping away,
is chased by little feet,
with the giggling children
reaching, downwards
for fistfuls
of halcyon bliss,
then coming up
with soaked
and salty sands,
their high-pitched sounds
bouncing back
from monolithic rocks.

And all these things
become a vapid beauty
before the bulbs
light up everything we think
we need to see.

One problem remains,
of course:
People's discernment is poor;
Because we should always
be seeing as much as we can
while we can.
There is, in fact,
one sovereign sundown
remaining,
unaffected by Edison,
which will put us all
in darkness.

Poet's Notes:  I'm interested in the limits of existence. I wanted to capture a beautiful sight, while also touching upon that broader theme.

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