Sunset December 14

My cousin Lee and others have shared numerous photos of breathtaking sunsets lately (the photo's hers), which is probably why I was so attentive to the horizon on the way back from Vantown yesterday. I couldn't pull over and take a picture, so I just talked to the sun all the way home. Here's what I couldn't get out of my head this morning:

As struggle/transition (synonymous most times)
between day and night
neared its inevitable conclusion –
just when I thought the sun
would acquiesce painlessly,
she opened a vein,
letting flow a dark red river.

Clouds, tipping their hand,
soaked up the blood like nurses
gently gauzing surgical incision,
evidencing their complicity in the coup.

Of course, dark eventually triumphed,
but through sun’s epic struggle,
those of us facing raging night
remember her promised return;
winter’s pall not quite so ominous.

This daily sacrifice,
played out on every horizon,
with infinite variety,
shores-up fragile walls of faith,
reminding us: grace and God
are as ever-tenacious
in pursuit of our future.

Thanks be to edge of earth and sky!

© 2011 Todd Jenkins