JANUARY SUNSET

JANUARY SUNSET

January sunset, clear blue sky,

peacock viridian with a wash of ultramarine,

warm for this time of year.

Ninety-nine percent of a full moon

waxing maculately ivory white in the east.

The threads of the little black creeks

that have frayed away from the strong rope

are the dissonant wavelengths

of baby snakes in the snow.

The willows orange against

the burnt umber backdrop

of a grove of pine, birch, maple

trying to keep some desperate secret to themselves.

Unkempt, wind-swept fields,

under an archipelago of snow,

the exhausted afterbirth

of cattle-corn and sheep

as if that were all they had to show

for the long hard labour of bringing forth life

as the stars are beginning

to emerge from the dark

as the prelude to something spectacular.

The air damp with the fragrance of snow

as the temperature drops cold-hearted

as the blood in the proboscis of a mosquito.

And way off in the misty distance

at the edge of the field

praying mantis hay-balers

arachnid hay rakes,

late triassic tractors

that look like dehorned stegasauri,

machines seized by rust, time, futility,

that have stood there so long,

patient dinosaurs enduring their extinction,

it would be less than human

not to feel sorry for them

or wish for some kind of astronomical catastrophe

that could make it up to them

without bringing the dead back to life

like clusters of houseflies fooled by the weather.

Lunar lichen and wet leaves

the colour of tanned leather

plastered like poultices

to the skeletal femurs

of a crippled cedar rail fence.

Buds on the New England asters

that will never bloom this side of spring,

moments in time

freeze-framed in space,

as if spring didn’t know when

to leave the party at the peak of her popularity

and over did it way past curfew at the group home.

PATRICK WHITE