Sunset on the Desert

On my itinerary for the Spring Training Trip to Mesa, I had included an effort to shoot some sunsets in the desert area. Since two of the three evenings would be devoted to baseball games, I set out for some pictures before dinner, with what I thought was plenty of time to locate an angle and a vista to feature in the sunset pictures.

While I am quite pleased with several of the images I collected, it was a wild but short chase. For one thing, the maps had indicated to me the location of various mountains right in the area, ones that had streets and development built right up to the edges. After I left the motel, I headed west to get out of Tempe and found myself behind one of the mountains. Driving a bit quickly to clear the obstacle I found that in my non-scientific opinion, light falls quite quickly on the desert. Perhaps it is the city boy in me seeing a difference, and perhaps the trip being within a week of the equinox had a effect, but it was a palpable difference to me.

Difference enough to generate this poem:

NIGHT FALLS QUICKLY

Night falls quickly on the desert with a perceptible though silent thud,
No lingering sunset, no streaks of tardily-departing light;
Almost as if someone had flipped a light switch and set it to
Off.