Crimson
flashes
across the sky
like a bleeding bird in 
flight.
The setting sun is quickly
dimming
this strip of fire, playing into the metaphor
by casting the clouds behind into a darkly spread wing.
Awe-full how quickly that
	Loud	Color
is silenced.
Only
minutes before, it seemed a vibrant
tongue,
reaching towards the ground,
ready to lap up the whole river.
The water shook against the shore.
	Now,
		the 
			bird's wing spreads,
a shadow-cloud reaching towards earth.
Hush, lull, smooth, still,
almost quiet enough to  hear
the sky's slight movement,
the rustle of a far-off wing.
If only I could strain my ears,
wipe away the dust-like white noise, then
I could hear clearly
that final stir
of settling night.

Lines run across the river like thread on an ever-weaving loom.
A tireless knitter,
the river stitches rows of ripples.
Sunlight slips behind a hill like an unruly ball of yarn,
rolling out of reach. 
Before it unravels
into gradations of gray-
the rainbow of non-color-
it unfurls
a thread
of 
fire.

For a moment
all the world is in blue flame.
Everything is primal blue-
a pigmented scream
human sensibilities might round
into the domesticated sounds of 
	periwinkle,
	cobalt, and 
	cerulean.

Lightness
	unravels
		through
			the water,
unstitches with itself horizon,
raggedly exposes division as a temporary abstraction.
Everything is just a shadowed hue
of that one fading blue.
Then the earth rolls away from the last line of sun,
the embers die,
the sky
settles 
into gray.
Night flies in on ashen wings.