Canyon sunset, before the snow

Dark clouds lit up from the inside by the softest blush against pearly white light. In places, the clouds are like a bouquet of balloons. The long line of heavy, dark cloud speaks of the promised snow for tomorrow. A delicate pink mist forms overtop the first blush. A heavy dark cloud is outlined in pink, with pink bubbles underneath it. A pink rose bursts out of a leaden ground at the other side of the sky. If only I had my sketchbook and paints. More and more pink makes itself known in the otherwise ominous sky. Pink and pink and pink. There is a pink clasp attached to one part of the clouds and pink overlay of another part. It is a truly glowing sunset. It is in contrast to the sooty great clouds spread out beside the setting sun. And the pink deepens, becomes fuchsia in the areas close to the horizon. One cloud is dappled with pink and another highlighted in spots. It is as though somebody took a pink highlighter through the parts of the sky that they wanted to remember.  There is a mauve cast over the trees, salmon between the second bank of clouds and an odd yellowish white over a strand of trees to the left. Pink smoke trailing through the sky.  A neon pink strip over the trees to the right, a sandstone apartment building underneath. Who in that building is watching this particular setting sun? Could it be that the sunset watches the lives and concerns of those living in the building, observing the frustrated husband coming home from work after a day of having to eat shit at the office? Does it see his wife soothe him into good nature or recite her own list of woes from the day? Does this sunset see the children clamouring for their parent’s attention, all the homework done or left undone? Does it witness the television flickering inside the apartments and see the woman leave to go to a PTA meeting, shop at the grocery store or iron a shirt for work the next day? Do any of those people gaze back at the sunset in recognition of a known face or do they walk past their windows totally unaware,  absorbed in the events of the day?  

          Janet Bellinger

          c 2005