Waning sunlight clings to the mountaintops
like a snow of red cinders from a dying campfire.
It sets behind West Mountain and Utah Lake,
a glimmering pool of reflected magma spreads
in tendrils weaker and weaker
then snuffs out
in a crepuscular hurry.

Grey the sky fades, dead and ashen
in the brief moments of nautical dusk.
Horizon flat and blackblotted from view,
our spherical world
wrapping us,
blinding us.

The stars like myopic wildlife
stare inward at us.
They stare through us.

That daylit din settles and calms, and
excepting the roars of the omnipresent diesels
and nighttrains, our valleyed little city
shutters its windows, succumbs to sleep.

The dull empty glow of the
tabernacle makes blacklimbed tree figures
and the pale moon rises quiet
over dark foresttops.


tabernacle at dark


a mountain moonrise

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This morning brought a lovely little springtime reminder that winter wasn't so long ago. The heavy snow and flooded gutters and lawns made me want to post this poem that I wrote over different days and while seeing different scenes during winter months.