Sunsets
by Jane St. Clair

I wondered what it would be like to go to the same spot in Tucson every day and watch each beautiful Arizona sunset day after day.

I would go to the same place every day in the same way

that Manet went to the same spot every day to paint the same haystack in different lights.

I found out that most sunsets are everyday ordinaire, like vin ordinaire,

And that Arizona sunsets are, more than anything, light shows.

Every sunset is an event, in that the sun moves from the top of the sky to the edge of the horizon and then it disappears.

When it happens, the energy of the earth changes. The sun is setting, and the earth’s energy loses its everyday quality and becomes restless.

Everything becomes restless, even people. Animals need to hole up for the night.

Flowers shut down. Restless birds pepper the sky right before sunset.

We humans do the equivalent with our “rush hour,” the nervous scramble to get home before dark.

As I said before, most sunsets are ordinary. However, a few clouds can turn them into spectacles.

Add thunderheads for real drama.

Add crazy combinations of colors that no human artist would use –wild fusions of orange, pink, chartreuse and turquoise.

Big, dramatic, bright colors lighting up the world one last time before night.

They are like the big colors of autumn back East that light up the world

one last time before the black night of winter.

Brother Sun says, “Look at me! Here – something’s happening here!”

He does not go gentle into the dark desert night — in fact, sometimes

he sets the mountains on fire.

It keeps getting more and more beautiful. Just when you think you cannot

take in such beauty,  it grows even more beautiful.

You are thankful for your eyes, that you can see this beauty. Surely a thing of beauty lasts forever!

But then it fades to black …

Every time.

Good night, Arizona, until tomorrow at 5:30 near Oracle and Hardy Roads.