This is not a Florida sunset; this photo was taken from a freighter in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I tried valiantly to capture more than one sunset as we headed SW toward New Zealand.
So different from the one in the poem and from the one in this site’s banner. That “Pink Beauty” deserves a poem of her own. She was captured from our rooftop dining area of our rental in Comares, Spain, in May 2006.
A spiritual man asked for words to tell of this night, when He chose to wipe the horizon with hands oiled in bright reds and a touch of umber. Nearby, a girl wondered if her battered camera could get those long, greasy, red-fingered lines scrawled across the horizon. Standing in silence in the parking lot, unaware of the other, or of the woman by the door, with the brush dripping red by her side. A bird's thrilled call broke the hush and each turned away; as if in unison they knew the futility of even trying to capture this beauty.
Republished in 2020 by Marilyn Paluszak. This poem was originally written after bearing witness to a spectacular sunset from a Walmart parking lot in July 2011.