The Intoxication of a Summer Sunset

Our hands have touched the circumference of the sky, and we've tasted the sun between our teeth
caught in the shining silver fishhooks of our smiles
Wafting through summer like feathers on a breeze
Golden skies gleaming on shifting navy waters
reflecting the evening sun bleeding to death on the sharpened points of indigo mountains1

I've let my hands wander over your skin
bees floating around fragrant candy-coated blossoms
vibrant and plump and saturated with colour
I've kissed your wide welcoming lips
parted with a gentleness like plum-shaded petals
opening to greet the light of dawn 2

We've crashed into the oceans wild thrashing waves
colliding with giant frothing foam masses
matching blow for blow
dancing in the rough rampant waves with savage abandon
our bodies lurching and hurdling and plunging
through the cold cold water
lost in a deep pure rebellion
against the buffeting thundering sea3

and we've relaxed
as those same tides sprawled lazily over the smooth sand
like a sheet over tan skin
kissing the tips of our dirt-speckled toes.4

We've laughed and we've dreamed
We've tasted and felt and seen
We've danced and pranced and believed we were all stars burning bigger and brighter than the sun5

But summers died away
Septembers chilled breath has stolen Julys blue skies
Flowers lay rimmed with crowns of glittering frost as a parade of crinkled leaves stained with autumns colours slip through crisp cool air to the faded grass
The suns finally set over those once-glittering waters
bled to death on the mountains purple peaks with a slow intensity over those long two months
that seemed like a universe onto themselves
that would never see the end or meet in some sort of conclusion.
Now the waters black with the suns dried blood
the sky empty and barren6

The sunset is ever more beautiful
for the fact that it is temporary