WHERE NEXT THE SUN WILL RISE

Sunset this eve painted the clouds
which by morning will bring a cold rain
but for now those same ephemeral shrouds
are colored with an orange stain.

So many sunsets, so many years,
all similar but none the same,
some were seen through streaming tears
others enjoyed with an old flame.

I've watched sunsets in dripping heat
after working a long day
and seen them in a blowing sleet
when trees shivered bare and gray.

Until now I've become an old man
who knows the sunsets yet to be
are far fewer than when I began
as years and time continue to flee.

I am content that this is so.
There will come the time to end my race.
Yet when it becomes my time to go
I'll see the sun Rise in another place