ON NOT TAKING A PICTURE

Sunrise and sunset are sudden.

In between, time dawdles,

knocking its heels against a kerb of clouds.

But have you watched the red boil

urgently erupt or be resorbed once more

by the horizon’s groin?

And did you breathe

as the sun shot up or down?

With these exits and entrances

on certain privileged days

come special light effects

(resulting from planetary dust

and reaching us in the longer frequencies).

Often I rush from the attic

for the camera

to embalm the evening’s calm in emulsions.

Back from Boots the oblong mummy

is there to be seen at will:

open the album or the drawer,

and you can freeze-dry the dying glory of so long ago.

Today at 4.15 the sky once more

began to flush: a bank of gold

held up the blood-stained cloths

under a venous blue.

I moved towards the ladder, meaning to film the light

but shook my head.

This sunset wouldn’t be immortalised.

I’d watch it die, turn grey, turn black,

quite disappear into the night:

it was the best.