Saturday 5 April 2014

Poem: Last Sunset?


I sat and watched a sunset, the red and orange
And pink and… It covered me. It hurt my eyes.
I think I even enjoyed it, despite the blindness.
But it occurred to me; what if this were my last one?
I worried about whether it was the best I’d ever seen.
I worried about missing out on better.

I worried about worrying about sunsets
Because weren’t sunrises just as important?
So I vowed to see each one right at its conception.
I set my alarm and stumbled from my warm bed
Just to see the sun turning up for a day’s work.
Just to see the day turning on.

And then I’d wait all day to see it turning off again.
And I thought, it’s just a giant light switch and I was
Getting tired and bored and wondering who stares at a light?
Each time it wasn’t my last I became a little less
Interested.
The sun set and it rose and I was still here.
The sun set and it rose and I wasn’t dead.

So I stopped setting the alarm, and I stopped watching
The sun do its thing. Because it was going to do it
Whether I saw or not. Maybe that’s the thing I was
Supposed to realise. In the end it doesn’t matter
If you see the sunrise for the last time,

If you see the sun set no more – you’ll never know.

ãLisamarie Lamb 2014