Sunset Meditation

Balancing 
on the edge of  night, this molten yolk 
fat and falling from the sky
must be more than an egg in God’s fire,
something grand, I’m sure, 
that could boil the blood of the wicked
crack mountains open 
suck a sea of birds skyward to wing,
and ring like an angry fist on a brass gong.

I am made dizzy by this thing 
come ’round once more to pull my pagan heart.

Will it never stop?
Will there be no day of peace
when tired oceans cease to roil, 
when buttercups lie forever golden on the lip,
the comely Doe freezes in her perfect pasture,
and nothing blinks to spoil sweet nature?

But in that moment of serenity
all love would also stop, 
all pain of longing locked forever in caress, 
insults unresolved, 
all promise lost in stillborn beauty.
 
So it is true, 
death is the mother of life, all youth, decay, 
engendering anew each day
as astonished morning
slips darkly from the womb of night
to touch my cheek with breath
at first light.