Cara Nusinov      Delray Beach              (Kristin Thurston)
Sunsets Then Now

Winters, we biked through gators, and snakes in the Glades. Everyone 
did, we were insane, we were young, fearless, bikinied, and we sang 
songs of hope and protest, my hippy hair grazing my derriere, my 
two-gallon purple hat, a beacon for boys. We walked barefoot through 
the bathrooms at Haulover Beach, through that tunnel to the sand, 
shouting helloooooo, our echo, electric laughter. No one was eaten by 
a shark or burned in the fires we lit at night on the sand. No rules, no 
regulations. We just did what was right and lived politically tolerant, 

mostly kind lives. Now, today, chaos and dictators reign,  Fear, Horror, 
Germs, Smoke, glide by, creating clouds of sorrow strewn like frosted 
crystal dinner plates across this horizon, stacked like freshly washed 
dread. The sun sinks, white glass against baby blue, a sky circus: 
citrus yellow, pink…it fades down, down, backlit by God. Then a haze 
somewhere north, orange-gray smoke puffs float on atmospheric 
currents. Cameras click-click. Horizontal whites flash bright neon--
peach, aquas. Venus pops through, Mars, photos turn burnt umber, 

indigo blazes scream. It’s almost as if the sun wears a veil to stay 
hidden now that no one shouts joy or plays Frisbee, faceplanting in the 
sand. Bitten by heat and fear, all sorts of mayhem appears. Tonight, a 
clear evening, this is a place to be…out in the night. Fireflies spit light, 
moths flutter in our cellphone lens and dive to nowhere. The moon 
hangs…there…palms silhouette, and night herons call to their mates. 
Do sunsets and nature endure through slayings, madness and murk? 
                                   We stare at ghosts.