Poem on Malibu Beach, CA, March ’20

What is it to look upon a sunset?
Is it to discern among the brilliance of color
(Were the word alone sufficient)
Its constituent components, and thus to gain some insight 
As to the nature of things?
Is it instead to gaze into the world reflected,
The whorling hills which goodly Hermes on his way sends,
The clouds in their bosom brotherliness like another earth?
Is it to gain the sense of an ending,
The only one available to conscious thoughts,
And so to obtain a degree of peace
With it
All?

Regardless, incipient on your tongue ought be
The dispossessed billions of this shale solid,
Arcing towards galactic quietude,
Asking themselves the same in Bahasa or Aymara. You could be a Buendia out of
Macondo, deathless by the grace of your creator,
A sometime docent and latterly magician,
But you are made of solider stuff, and good too. 

Consider the alternative: you could be festooned
With a sense of the criticality of this one,
And careen howling from hawker to hawker,
Kneeling, bawling, tearing at sleeves and your own knotted hair,
Begging, scratching, “Don’t forget, don’t Forget.”

Your partner is already some paces away, 
Bellyful of introspection, and appetite whetted. This happens, after all,
Every day.