an ordinary day in december

when the bombs fell
it was evening.

the sun had
already fallen.

it is not so often clear
where i was.
not so often can you see
the cloudless sky.
not so often
can you see the mountaintops.

when the bombs fell
it was clear
and it was evening.

the mountaintops
were bone white with snow.
the sky was pale violet.
the sky doesn’t stay
that color long.
only a few minutes.

i was walking in the harbor parking lot
and the sky was washing out
in the fading light.
the mountains were glowing
bone white and the sky
behind them
was pale violet.

a bald eagle
had swooped down onto
the frozen harbor
and caught a gull.
one of the gray,
mottled gulls,
not one of snowy
bone white.

a few people were standing
in the harbor parking lot,
watching the gull struggle.
watching the eagle pluck
and pull downy feathers
from the gull.
i looked at the ice
in the harbor,
where the eagle plucked
and the gull pulled.
the tide was low
and the ice broke itself
on exposed rocks.
i kept looking back
at the mountains,
the pale violet sky.

it only took me
a minute,
maybe three,
to walk down
the ramp
from parking lot
to dock.
turning my head
again towards
the mountains,
i saw that
the pale violet
had been washed from
the sky.
the sky
now taking on the hue of
deep space.
a planet
was pulsing,
twinkling,
in the strengthening dark.
it had not been visible
only moments before.

the bone white mountaintops
stood out
in stark contrast,
to the deepening sky.

when the bombs fell
there were still people
in the harbor parking lot,
watching the bald eagle
tear plumage
from the gray mottled gull.
there was a guttural moan
from a steel seining boat,
tied to the dock.
there was a stink
of thick,
burned
fuel,
a plume
of brown exhaust.

i was looking
again back,
walking along the dock
to the boat i lived upon,
looking back again
at the mountains.
they aren’t so much
beautiful
as they are
shocking.
staggering.
indescribable.

when the bombs fell
the bone white mountaintops
flared pink.
the sky behind them
glowed a warm ochre.
as though the sun
was rising.

when the bombs fell
i was looking back
at something beautiful.
when the bombs fell
the last thing i saw
was beauty.