This Hour

June 6, 2025

These long twilight evenings of early summer dusk,
	Castor and Pollux settling into the orange haze of sunset,
Pacific fog rising beyond the Coastal Range, sinewing
       White tendrils wrap around Mount Hebo,
Filling the valleys behind Spirit Mountain with rising mist,
	Beyond the silhouetted spires of ponderosa pine, and fir,
Flickering billboard lights along 22 running out to the coast,

This hour, just before darkness, melancholic brief summer idyls,
	Cool tonight, wind blowing fog across the valley,
Redolent with the wistful smell of freshcut hay,
	This view to the west I love so well, 
Quiet, at last, I watch from the ruins the seasons pass,
	Sunsets, all marking losses,
Passing day, passing time, night descending,

This hour, a pall watching the landscape sets in my heart,
	That it looks the same, yet how I know it is not,
The once-great republic besieged by racism and hatred,
	Led by greed, and a fascistic need to ruin the world,
In a season of loss, the future of the country,
	Indeed the planet, looks exceedingly dim,
Wrecked by ignorance, our most human condition,

This hour, the last ruddy smudge of light behind the mountains,
        Cassiopeia rising, Ursa Major prominent overhead,
I watch from the ruins as our lives unfurl
	Before us, into the great last unknowable, 
Into these sunsets, the last shining days
	Of our own American experiment, graced, 
At this late hour, that we may have
	This dwindling hour together.