Libby Sommer: ‘Transience’

Transience

A luminous, tangerine, and blazing expanse
burst out to the left of the blue
from the harbour to the city as the western light
lowered itself behind concrete high-rises.
We watched from the hill,
took a seat on the park bench,
the lawn with its after-the-rain moistness
too wet to lie back on.
We knew we had to seize
this fleeting moment.

We were spectators of that sensational
display, after enduring the restrictions
that made us change and mutate,
shape-shifting during the months,
then the years, of the pandemic,
wearing us down, teaching us
adapt, adapt, adapt,
change, change, change.

Today we search for the brilliance
unfolding in the sky.

Libby Sommer