It is another Monday.

Most of the out-of-towners

have gone back to their life.

My son and I watched

a blood orange sun

disappear beyond the edge

of the earth.

Near the end

it appeared bigger

and sunk faster.

It was like the death

of my mother.

At the end we stared.

We counted her

freckles and wrinkles

and the rise and fall of her chest.

At the time it seemed like eternity,

but now the memory is a short journal entry.

It is like taking out a granite tablet

and jotting down her life in a sentence.

The beauty was fleeting

and we wanted to touch it.

There was once a big moon

as big as a get-well balloon.

There was a big sun

as big as a farewell.

© Gerald Allen Barrett and parentheticallyspeakingin3d, 2012.