Which is the finer: sunrise or its setting?

But that’s like asking which is prettier,

The face or its reflection in a mirror?

The pageantry of saffron, rose, and then

Magenta hues drowns every entity

On earth with the cascading, gaudy wrath

Of an artistic God, and the grand sun

Shall riot at each bookend of the day – 

Light twisted by geometry and air.

Is it the flight of stars or their return?

To gain the heat of day or greet the cool

Of eventide? Its flourish or its fading?

The shadows shrinking or their elongation?

Excitement for the new day’s birth engenders

The jolts of giddiness for ripe potential

To be seized, harvested as action’s fruit.

As air to lungs, so daybreak to the soul;

An easterly exuberance pours forth.

But oh, when limbs and mind hum with fatigue

The gentle rapture of the drowsy sun

Wafts a narcotic poetry into

The weary spirit, foreplay instigating

Before sleep’s embrace and the bliss of dreams.

It makes us cherish vast horizons more

As beauty strolls to shine on other lands

And legions of tomorrows flirt with us

In splendor as the future gives a wink.

Admittedly, I have to catch my breath

When sunshine climbs the mountainous partition

That bars the orient from human view

And paints a city with a golden flood.

But when my eyes are seared by western fire

That makes the sky a monolithic ember

There is no tongue to speak nor strings to strum

That can unfold the yearning that will bloom

Within my heart to watch the daylight’s pyre.