twilight zone.

With the sunset around, I think I’ll always have my muse.

There seems to be something
about the way things subside:
a slow and sluggish yielding
of the day into night. And we
struggle with our senses, lest
the spectacle before us disappears
out of sight, a keepsake

of the moment. It almost seemed
so easy to think it would last
forever: a hushed, haunting ritual.
The rustle of trees, the hum of crickets.
The rays seeping shyly
into each lilting leaf, each branch
swaying gently into night, towards night.

We are held speechless, bathed
in golden splendor that was not ours
to keep – some seaside evanescence
detaching us from reality.
But this is not Manila Bay, and we
are not lovers walking straight
into the sunset. If only we could hinder

the decay of dusk into that vanishing point,
the surrender of beauty, the transition of
manifold things into dark. All the while struck
by how order resists meaning: That final and
sententious deluge of light. The day returns
everything, the formless, into place. And there’s
no use wishing how the past could be relived –

I am alone, you are alone,
the pangs of regret unwillingly
rushing back as all before.