Not Just Any Sunset

NOT JUST ANY SUNSET This lunar sunset was what he’d most miss - They always said death was like this : Slo-mo and black-and-white Like an old movie trite. It had happened to him twice before : then At rush hour on the G15 highway outside Shenzhen (1) In his new red car when he was twenty; And again on the pad at Dongfeng launch facility - (2) An accidental fire in the cabin and abort When the oxygen supply fell short. The sun had glared at him all day from the black night Familiar stars visible, coloured bright. He ran through his old lectures in his head The cool ones - yellow orange, red, The hot ones which stare and emblazon, As everything slips slowly down to the western horizon. No loss of heat from sun, but shadows lengthening now, Black, black, lengthening inky shadow. His pen wrote fast across his paper notepad deformed But the inky marks now in Pudonghua formed (3) As his English slipped away. He’d been here so long . . . . a month? A day? Day is 15 earth days, night is 15 nights And sunset lasts a whole earth day bright Moon was full, his earth was darkened, like night. A blue watery ball with edges of light: While the earth eclipsed the sun A red halo around his spinning home was spun. Sun’s entry on earth’s western limb made slow Red flares - crowns - as the solar disk slid low, And earth’s red light bathed itself on white rocks beside, He felt a last touch of home inside. So unlike his own sunsets of the past In his home in Guangzhou, seen last (4) Over the Pearl River delta with bent light (5) At the heavy monsoon rains’ height. This taikonaut’s last sunset . . . . . his radio dead, (6) His pen drops, and he slowly nods his head, As sun’s warm arms envelope his earth fond, And he slips his surly bonds. (7) ………………………………………………………………………………………… Notes (1) A well-known dangerous highway in southern China (2) Chinese equivalent to Kennedy Space Centre (3) Pudonghua (=Chinese) is the language spoken in southern China (4) Major mega-city in southern China, near Hong Kong (5) Pearl River is the river on which Guangzhou stands (6) Astronaut = cosmonaut = taikonaut (7) This line is closely modeled on a line in “HIGH FLIGHT” by John Magee ....................................................................................... Entered in Nancy Jones's Contest "LOSERS"