SUNSET

Sunset 1 & 2
Acrylic and gold leaf on acid-free paper
18" x 28"


Balmy... that's how I would describe that day. At five in the afternoon, people were walking along the bay enjoying the breeze.

A couple passed me by pushing a baby carriage. Laughing. Joking. Their eyes the picture of rest and contentment. A young woman, heels clicking on the rust-colored pavement bumped into me. Apologetically, she looked at me, smiled sheepishly and whispered a sorry. As fast as it happened, she walked on leaving her scent of newly shampooed hair. For a while I was lost in her scent until the shrieks of some playing children brought me back from my momentary reverie.

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Right where the small boats were anchored by the bay, I sat, took a cigarette, puffed on it and just watched the sun go down.

It's a beautiful sight to see. The sky turned a light yellow, then orange, and then, as if on cue on a theater stage, the sun turned a fiery red. Bright, round and glowing... it's as if it was a ball of red fire slowly dipping into a golden sea. I couldn't look straight into the sun without hurting my eyes.

Turning my gaze, I looked up above it and from above the horizon a jet was slowly drawing a white streak across the sky. I thought to myself, it's like God's hand drawing across the canvas - His sky. The stroke just crept across the sky and as if God was joking, He led the stroke across my fiery red sun dipping it's head into the golden ocean.

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If I could talk to God, I'd ask him..."Boy, that was already "perfect". A ball of fire, a golden sea. Why do you have to draw across it with Your white streak?" Well, I guess, I'll never know why.

The only thing that I would ever know is, on a balmy late afternoon, I saw the sun go down - a perfect scene - and in one tiny instance, God drew a streak across it - my perfect moment.