When Day Is Done

Day wanes and sun, once bold and high in summer’s sky, is melting into a shimmering pool of cool blue. Kaleidoscope colors, neon orange, brilliant mauve, deep rose, and softer hues of violet and pink blush weave in and out of trails of feathered clouds that slowly, ever slowly descend in the splendid sky. Reclined inside my giant inner tube, I gaze upward, at ease with myself, content in the world surrounding me and placid as the tranquil sea lapping against my dangling feet. My face tingles from the sun’s long kiss that has lingered on my skin since late afternoon. I look down at the beads of water gleaming on my chest. I lay my head as far back as I can, taking in the last rays of my lover sun, letting their warmth caress my cheeks. I close my eyes. . . then open them to a sky grown slightly dark. Shadows lengthen across the gentle waves. I shiver, peer down at my arms and see goose flesh has appeared. The water now pulses a rhythmic lullaby against my inner tube. I want to stay here, rocking and rocking as the shadows merge into one and become the opposite of what I’d come here for. But I am cold. Too much stillness is upon me. My day of sunny solitude diminished and then finally disappeared, leaving only the solitude. My day is done. I head for home.