Sunset on a Western Point

The hanging sun emits the last day’s comfort upon my cheeks,

as the low hover of surrounding mesas

settle into moonscape formations of purple and blue washes

you can only imagine in the saturated photographs you sometimes see,

that seem not quite real.

I fixate on the lone steel guardrail converging to form

a perfect apex to the hanging lip of the sun,

now radiating in pitched brilliance to the last testimony of the calendar day.

And from my gaze into the final vestige of daylight,

a lone pair of headlights emerge like a distant search vessel

suddenly appearing on the horizon for a shipwreck crew.

I listen,

carefully listening to the creaked echo

of my grated joints grinding within the numb folds of my skin.

I ponder the effort to raise up a universal thumb,

overcome in the lightheadedness of thought,

if indeed, this faceless driver would find in poor happenstance to aid his fellow man,

or pass me by, thinking best to avoid being a serial victim on the six o’clock news.

Like the closing thunder of many horses in frantic flight,

my extended hand limps to a dejected fall, eyes tearing in the frigid wake of their passing.

Still, my soul finds its own company,

as I trek onward under the latitude of a New Mexico moon.

The surreal, spirit-filled lands the Indians laid rest too,

whisper into my consciousness in quiescent perception,

Go west my young brave; the eagle's deep reverence of life you seek

is discerned within the crow's darkened eye. Take hold of peyote root,

reunite in spirit form to the chant rhythm-dance of our ancestors.

There the children of earth greet us before the Great Spirit.

And, so I do, lighting my last joint, taking a deep breath,

taking in the billion stars pinpricked this evening and dancing upon

the painted yellow lines of life and death, alone.

- Mark Trubisky

Inspired by the painting “Sunset on a Western Point”