Alone

I watch the sun set
cut in half by the horizon
and bleeding red
light on the tall grass, the dirt,
the trees, leaves, and stones.
And for once,
I belong.

I belong to the red earth,
dark, deep, smothering
everything beneath the surface,
hiding what's buried
with a plain, unassuming
face.

I belong to the red sky,
fading in so many colors,
shameful pink, angry orange,
gradually descending to a
bruised, depressed blue
that swallows stars
like so many disconnected tears.

I belong to the red stone,
unyielding, cold, inhuman,
painful, immovable until one
displaces it, picks it up and exiles
it from its home,
leaving a hole that time
must fill in.

I belong to the shadows
cast by pillars of pine and oak,
to the chill winds
that belong to no one place,
to the vast emptiness that occupies
the time between dusk and night.

I watch the moon rise,
like a ghost of the sun,
an echo,
displacing shadows,
anchoring stars.
The sky deepens and is made
whole,
the red light seeps into the earth
and is gone,
the winds die down
and sleep

and I
I stand alone