Serene Sunset

Trees zip past and we roll over the hills;

High hedgerows are clustered and laced with cow parsley,

Disappearing into clumps as the dusk rises to claim them.

Green lumps, richly moist, richly fertile, bask in lowering light.

The sky is bluest blue, like a baby's blanket spread,

But gradually peach clouds of the finest fleece

Enfold the day, and their persistent cosseting

Is rippling the heavens into dappled stripes

Of harmonious beauty that startle my eyes

With their glory. A thin spire skewers the magnificent light;

It has long since pierced the naval of the sun god

With its earthly wrought black point and stands tall,

savouring its Impressionist background of dabs.

It has a power, above the town as its bell sounds,

But the sky is trumping its architectural spire tonight.

It is serene, this sunset and as I head towards it

And it sinks behind the zigzag of roofs and smoking stacks

Of George and George and George and the golden stone

Wrenched and picked and axed from its bed,

I am overwhelmed: by beauty; by nature; by love.

My heart is warm and my eyes are full.