The last/forgiving sunset of 2010

It was the end of the work day at the library. I had just discovered that I had missed an important work opportunity, something that I need very much. I cried. The sun had just set on the drizzly last day of 2010. Dejected, I pushed through the doors of the staff exit on Hyde Street, and I was engulfed by an extraordinary pinkish colored energy. The dusk was saturating the water molecules suspended in the air, seemingly activated by the the glow of the sunset and ricocheting off the tall cream-colored wall across the street. More than simply seeing, it was as if I had stepped into a specific medium, an atmosphere of a unique substance. I crossed over into the plaza and turned about to see the sunset. I had the immense luck to see the swarms of small black birds that roost in the dense trees lining the library along Hyde and Grove Streets; for three years I had listened to their abundant culminating song at sunset, but I had never seen them. They were in flocks that seemed to launch in turn from nearby bare trees, swirling in in liquid synchronized patterns like great amoebic organisms awash in unseen currents in the sky, and then alight on the trees. Their nightly ritual signalled by the great clock of this solar system. I stood entranced, absorbing it. The next morning I wrote a poem in appreciation of the healing effect that it had, and nearly three weeks later this has not at all subsided. I won't forget it because it is a permanent part of me, fortifying and reminding me of what and where I am: a being on the earth.

Read the poem about this