Sunset Two Ways

A reader, a critic, said
“Your poetry is not
poetic enough. Not
enough layers and what
layers there are
are too damn thin.”

What point obfuscation,
What point incomprehensible simile,
What point hairy metaphor,
What point the flowery
Language of
Yore?

Isn’t the story enough,
Aren’t the realities
Full of adequate
Realism?
Wonders described
Fairly well
Don’t need to make
One wonder.

I took the criticism
To heart and looked
At the sunset…

And I saw blood on stones
I saw a melting
Into orchids of shadow
I saw a christening
Of stars flying slowly free
And I saw changes
Unwanted but
Unavoidable.

There was more…

Clouds like silver ships
Breezes like the breath of cowards
Eyes fading and shrouded
With sensual doubt
More blood
Fewer stones
Cascading shards of concrete
Clear glass and computers.

But then…

I grew tired
I longed for a mountain
The sun slipping softly down behind
Leaving a bruised sky
Showing gentle purples
Powdery blues
Elusive greens
Then finally, darkness.

There are two ways to sunset.

An Artist In Film: Nature Series # 24

for Linda

She faithfully records milkweed
With silver nitrate reactions
On the purest white paper
As silken pods explode in
Chilled near winter
Bursts of wind.

She takes note of footprints
Wild tracks of wild things
As they lead her on trails
Pushed softly down
Into freshly fallen
Clean white snow.

When spring arrives with
Fiddleheads fine pushing up
Through leafy loam she is
There with her close-up
Lens making pictures, lying
Still upon the earth.

And then on a hot summer’s
Day I find her in the nearby
Woods lifting logs, searching
Stumps full of hidden mushrooms.
She is seeing, sensing, snapping
An artist in film, my love.