Eventide

Brushed with the languorous strokes of sunset The landscape touched by a sinewy fire, Breathing beneath the purple haze sky As electrical dusk tugs molecular wire. Bats from the caverns jerk black on thermals, Bouncing their radar off structures and ground, Charred blots of rag flap through the ether, Guided in following echoes of sound. Lights gleaming yellow in dullish convection, Pale at the windows of ramshackle bars, Shadows drop slowly in gutters and roadways Silhouette snowfalls burying cars. On the spire of the church a weathervane creaks, Fossilised cockerel of iron and age, Pointing to something that lay in the distance, Something to which light could no more engage? Eventide comes with a lonely delivery, The cloak of atonement spread onto the day As the hours that burned fade into the past And scenes that once anchored have drifted away.