the sun descends and light bends
scatters through dust,
through the thick exhale of the day.
shorter wavelengths scatter first,
the blues flee upward,
abandoning us.
what remains: red, orange,
the long slow wavelengths that refuse to scatter,
that push through the atmosphere like stubborn hands reaching.
it’s physics dressed as beauty.
it’s the earth turning away and the light catching on that turning,
catching on particles pollution, salt, smoke
all the debris we’ve left suspended.
the sky doesn’t change colour.
the light does.
we do.
we stand here watching the visible spectrum collapse into itself,
into reds we didn’t know we needed,
into the brief hour
when the world looks like it’s burning
when really it’s just leaving.
