At that sacred hour when the light concedes,
And the sun, a tired monarch, slowly bleeds
Across the horizon's wide and waiting stage,
The world turns over a new, dimmer page.
The shadows, long and languid, start to creep,
And lull the noisy, waking world to sleep.
The sky, a bruise of amber, rose, and rust,
Surrenders all its certainties to dust.
A final, fleeting, fiercely golden flare,
Then softens to a hush in the evening air.
Our voices, once so bold, now fall away,
As thoughts too loud for daylight start to sway.
A loneliness, a quiet passenger,
Sits down with us, a familiar visitor.
And in its company, a ghost of romance
Waltzes on the air, a single, saddened glance
At love once held, now just a fading hue,
A part of day the night has swallowed too.
This is the sundowner, more than just a drink,
A ritual upon the mind's own brink.
A pause, a breath, a moment held in glass,
Where what has been and what will be both pass.
A reckoning with all the light has burned,
And all the truths the darkness has not learned.
A sweetness in the letting go, the fall,
Suspended, in the quiet, after all.
Occasionally I drive her to the theater
if there is a revival of an old musical,
a matinee performance obviously.
She's a sundowner
when evening approaches
she turns into a child
and has no other memories
of a further long life.
After the show
driving back to the residential home
she is complaining.
Turns out she had no memory
of the musical 'West Side Story'
and it felt "so unnecessary."
Not sure what she meant.
"Does my mom know you took me
to a show like that?"
She herself is all of 83.
Now she's got me feeling like some kind of
weirdo-pervert.
I tell her I was misled
that I thought the show would be
a remake of 'Snow White.'
She likes Snow White.
Sundowner
canine senility
she has it
Is still the game in town.
Whether you recognize it or not,
It makes no difference.
Whether winky frown, hashtag or Kermit meme
has taken rot of your existence.
The world is changing, and at breakneck speed.
The elements are changing.
With impending ( trending! ) persistence.
The human element gravitating to self and
apathy, lust and greed.
The rest of them burning, disappearing,
corroding or falling into the sea.
I know this must be a preachy bummer.
A pulsating pustule, a sundowner to summer.
But, integrity matters.
It matters more than some may think.
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