Sunset is magical. But what I, especially, love is the enchanting twilight that follows it.
It was my first time visiting Peru & we were lucky to be staying right across from the water.
One evening stroll, as the light was fading, I saw this bird that looked like it was sitting on the setting sun!
I was reminded of a line from a poem by Tagore:
“Alas," cried the caged bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky.
I wasted no time in capturing this poetic image on my iPhone & even tried doing so from a few angles —- so that the bird was framed in the center of the sun & the branches hardly there...
Then, before you knew it, the bird took off and disappeared into the sky. Quickly, I snapped away and managed to capture that, too, as well as the changing light and a gentle breeze playing on the surface of the mesmerizing water, like it was a harp.
Contemplating this enchanting hour — with its sense of exhalation, release all possibilities and healing — put me in a calm, meditative state. Here’s a poem I wrote:
Sunset
Sunset is a gentle master to all that are stricken
patiently, teaching us how to melt a bruise away
Watch how, with a silver whisk, that cracked egg
of a setting sun is majestically stirred, and put to rest
Violent violet, pining pink, and yelling yellow
all agitated, then muted, their differences reconciled
Until all that remains is a faint tattoo of quiet hurt
pearlescent wisps of smoke from a sighing flame
that night, stealthily, smothers and hushes away…
©Yahia Lababidi
And, in keeping with the bird theme, here’s evocative street art from Lima, Peru that I also took a picture of on this trip, and which somehow echoes my encounter with that sunset bird...
With many thanks to for sponsoring this lovely
contest as well as the jurors:
and
I do hope that my entry conveys to you some of the Beauty that I experienced.