Sunset from the observatory, cold air flows
bright and dry across the still earth.
With no great drama the light winks out behind the volcano, commonplace
end of every day.
But in the other half of the sky
the shadow mountain is rising,
peak cast clear to the horizon
against a false frozen sea
unreal plume
cast up and out
North and away
a stream of seeming matter
passing through grey and purple into unbeing
into light.
Silent eruption that seems to unmake the mountain even as it grows, reaching up now above the horizon, shadow cast on air somehow
as the crescent of the night rises,
shadow of the Earth.
Mountain swallows the sky
as we turn away from the sun.
glad fragments 