Good News at Sunset
Nels Hanson
Evening air glowed warm, still
forever, sky that pearl gold-silver
before dark cobalt turns to night.
I almost floated, amazed by 20
lit lovely faces, strangers passing
sidewalks starred with flecks of
quartz and iron pyrite. Cars shone
just painted, storefronts’ textured
bricks breathed amber light, each
priceless, different from the rest
and I remembered how everything
blazed luminous pure hours on
mescaline in Debbie James’ fenced
yard near Portland, thirsty monarch
butterflies casting striped orange
shade through black-striped wings
and ruby-throated hummingbirds
in emerald armor arriving always
right on time with lacquered bills
drinking the yellow Cardinal roses.
Veined petals’ dust burned bright
as Mars or Venus and dandelions
flaring to saffron suns flamed out
in quick shadow, gray cloud, until
bronze grass blades waving indigo
flashed sharper, fresh glint-edged
sabers from a forge. I lay on soft
jade lawn listening to the mourning
dove’s call falling and falling, blue
water pooling from the prune tree
by the porch. I felt sober and high
and at The Rose Cafe I started for
the lunch counter then swerved
with sudden shiver of a compass
needle to the dining room’s white
standing napkins folded the way
wading birds start to fly, waiting
goblets and red pressed tablecloth,
the purple lily in the crystal vase.
Nels Hanson has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. He graduated from UC Santa Cruz and the U of Montana, and his fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award. His stories have appeared in more than 100 literary magazines, including Antioch Review, Texas Review, Black Warrior Review, Southeast Review, Montreal Review, The Long Story, and South Dakota Review. “Now the River’s in You,” which appeared in Ruminate Magazine, was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize, and “No One Can Find Us,” in Ray’s Road Review, has been nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prizes. Poems have appeared in Poetry Porch, Atticus Review, Red Booth Review, Meadowlands Review, Emerge Literary Review, Language and Culture, Shot Glass, Outside In Literary & Travel Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, and other magazines, and are in press at Oklahoma Review and Paradise Review.