Fading Glitter

The fading remnants of day
Glitter on the horizon
Skyline silhouette under a golden sky
Beyond the great western harbour

I came here
Enthralled
Thirty-five years ago
Wide-eyed country boy

Glass and steel
In perfect lines
Rose above
The waters tread by commerce

Unwinding

A ride
A ride
A beautiful ride
On a sunny crisp
Sunday afternoon

Up the hill
And through the woods
Round corners
Through the trees
Over roots and rocks

Desert shadows and silhouettes
Hazy sky and spectral highlights
Joshua, Tree of Life
Standing tall and lordly

Over this world
Of heat and sorrow
Which takes so much
Then leaves so little

In the desert lands
All gravel stone and sand
But for the cholla
In her prickly shrine

Nearly every conscious moment
I am puzzling it out
Whether with glass and photons
Keyboards and electrons
Or synapses and neurons

But the wisest insights always come
When I turn away from all of these
And simply listen to the voice within
Which resonates best with my body

I have walked away
From so many things
So many places
So many people

Myself

Left so much behind
In faded memories
Lost to time
Distraction

And repression

When night falls
And the first stars
Begin to twinkle
In the darkening sky

I am reminded
Earth is a very small place
And I
I am a very small man

Sometimes
The chasm between
You and I
Seems so deep
Seems so wide

I cannot see
Into the depths
I cannot see
The other side

I have stood
At the ends of the Earth
And wondered
What lay beyond

Not the horizon
Where there is only
More water
And more land

How many sunsets
Have I witnessed
In this lifetime
And all the others

How many times
Have I watched
The last rays
Of a day dying