As the waves crash the spray glows along the ridges.
In a cloudless sky, a kite plays around the sun
in a breeze that can hardly be felt,
as if in slow motion--as if it's growing tired--
just like everything else.
On the beach wall sit wanderers and travelers,
couples and lovers, the happy and the sad,
all come to witness and share
in the end of another Saturday--
a surprisingly warm and clear
December Saturday--and no doubt
Saturn is smiling from his throne.
The birds, the gulls, they sense the transition,
just as aware of the daily phenomenon as we are,
perhaps filled with just as much wonder and beauty as we are,
because birds look better in the setting sun,
just like everything else.

As the sun descends slowly toward the horizon,
as the horizon slowly engulfs the sun,
I look wearily into a new year,
one filled with great hope and great despair.
There's no doubt this country will be struggling greatly.
The question is whether we'll weather it,
like usual.

As I stare at the sun it consumes my vision.
A flaming ball descending into the sea;
the dark negative trails burn into my retina & glide
upward like smoke into the chromatic sky.
The horizon distorts its apparently perfect circle,
appearing like a melting pad of butter;
a mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb.
It accelerates toward night as it approaches the horizon.
Its rounded top distorts into edges,
now looking like a house.
And as it douses itself in the sea like a hot iron sword,
it becomes but a twinkling strand of golden beads
on the surface of the waves,
finally disappearing,
leaving only a distinct glow in the sky
where once,
it was.

The wanderers and couples
shake out of their giddy trances & move
into the chilly San Francisco evening,
and I do the same,
wondering whether my final sunset
will be as calm
and beautiful
as this
one.