Robert M. Simmons  

from Added Entries (Poems 1991- )

The Last Sunset

As waves of heat swept land and sea,

all life was doomed by destiny.

Great clouds of gases billowed high,

painting the once unsullied sky

with brilliant colors never seen

on earth before in tints so keen;

and oceans that were fertile zones

now swirled with sludge in vivid tones

where creatures languished in the ooze

amidst the iridescent hues

while continents to deserts turned

from gusts that ancient forests burned

and scorched lands that not long ago

were blanketed with heavy snow.

Large cities where commerce once dinned

were silent save the sounds of wind

howling through now deserted streets

past buildings filled with vacant suites

down highways of all traffic purged

where streams of vehicles once surged

to villages with empty roads

and rows of desolate abodes

as man, whose numbers were so great,

shared with the world a common fate,

succumbing to the tragic trend

that sped all species to their end

till entries on the master roll

had dwindled to a single soul

whose time left on this spinning sphere

had shrunk to merely minutes dear.

He climbed a mountain peak to flee

the universal misery,

and feeble in his final day

upon a ledge of rock he lay

where he could see the world below

illumined by an eerie glow

of sunset screened through gases spread

across the heavens overhead.

On his remaining strength he drew

to watch the sun slipping from view,

unveiling to his spellbound stare

a masterpiece beyond compare,

framed by a rainbow arching high

around a dome of turquoise sky

with clouds of pink and purple shades

passing in silent cavalcades,

flecked with bright flakes of burnished gold

as they continued to unfold,

and pierced by shafts of orange light

all but blinding his fading sight.

To this tableau he was exposed

until his eyes forever closed.

                            © 2003 by Robert M. Simmons

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Subjects: poems about, global warming, climate change, extinction, sunsets, last person alive, poetry, poems

The Last Sunset