6.19.2006

Sunsets

My recollections about sunsets in my hometown are many and varied, as are the sunrises, the northern lights, or the sky itself, whether it be going on forever on a fine summer day bright blue with white popcorn clouds, or pitch black night with stars shining so bright and many that you couldn't believe there could be that many suns who were the people who lived around those suns my Mom and I speculated as she pointed out the constellations sunsets were long and varied, some orange and pink some red orange and purple others casting a magical glow that turned the landscape and everything in it a golden color as if someone had put a filter over the sun itself in winter the cold would make rainbow sundogs in so bright it hurt days and rainbow northern lights danced across black skys so deep the sunsets lasted long, past 10:00pm, and you went to bed with the sun still peeking over the horizon saying goodbye for today see you tomorrow some nights could would join the sun and the colors would play behind them like giant shadow puppets in the sky sometimes they were so beautiful my mother would stop gardening or my father would stop mowing or I would stop playing and we would say to each other look how beautiful the sunset it and we would look in awe it never got old