The Sunset And The Drawing

By Shibumi Desai

At sunset,

The sky plays out like a palette of myriad shades,

Going from yellow to orange to pink to purple,

In shades only nature can create.

Almost everyone at some point, makes a sunset drawing.

In the drawing,

There are some mountains which are brown,

(If people bother a little more they’re snow-capped),

There’s the sun setting between them.

Maybe a waterfall running down them,

Maybe a green field below.

At sunset,

The birds fly past,

With their songs and styles of flying,

Black outlines of so many shapes,

with a flash of green if you’re lucky —

All as different as the colours in the sky.

In the drawing,

At the top, the sky is white or plain blue,

(People often bother more here and use many different shades as well),

And there are always some V-shapes for birds,

Reducing them to nothing but black lines.

Let’s make the drawing again,

Not of a sunset,

But from a sunset.

Because black lines on their own can say such a lot,

But the birds in the sky -

Making the glide into their nests like a grand finale,

for us to see, almost every day -

deserve so much more.

Let’s only capture how they fly,

And we may find our own wings…

By Shibumi Desai