Norwood

for Matt and Elaine

What time is sunset?
An innocent question, full of hope
The baby will be sleeping
Let’s go to Norwood
And they do

It’s chilly here at night
Cool winds slide in off the big lake
Hugging themselves inside fading
sweatshirts found in bottom drawers, they go

A country road
Hills that gain and swell and flatten
in all the right places, like her body
From here the night is golden
at the crests, grey in the troughs

Quietly, too soon
the pavement shifts to gravel, to sand
The grunt of car doors, screams of gulls
Shhhhhh the plodding dance of water

Let’s go this way
They walk the line of beach
under layers of light or time
now gold, now pink, now the red
of her mouth, her cheeks on their wedding day
They walk together Into one another
Choppy Sputtering but destined,
like waves meeting shore

Like every other time,
sunset comes and goes too quickly
The great red ball floats and floats, then slips
It lulls you
You see it one moment,
the next it’s gone

I missed it
Easy to do
Thinking of the baby
sleeping
Thinking of last week or next
Watching for lights to come up on the point,
fires to be lit


Poet's note: A poem about seeking beauty amidst the everyday, and about how easy it is to miss it if we're not careful. This poem is dedicated to my brother, Matt, and his wife, Elaine, who make a point of noticing that which is beautiful in life.