Several times aboard a marine vessel that transports me between the island provinces of Bohol and Cebu in central Philippines, most of those happened during the late hours in the afternoon, I had witnessed the fairly eye-catching setting of the sun behind the low mountains of Cebu, with its radiance illuminated from a dome of orange and red and deep purple.

Most of my travel at sea between the two islands I traveled alone; I enjoyed the fresh salty air and the calmness of the sea, the state of being alone creates a tranquil room for self-reflection and contemplation. I am the kind who enjoys the company of my close friends and likes to travel with them, but I also enjoy and prefer to travel a few hours at sea by myself. It is when I reflect on the things I've done or should have done in the past, and figuring where this road I'm taking is leading to.

The sunset is my sole company during those times. Amid handfuls of strangers and passengers I find wordless conversations with nature. But it gives me a twinge of guilt going back into it over and over, finding solace in it, blinded most of the time by my own desire to fill some emptiness inside me, and making use of the sunset's company without even giving a slightest expression for its beauty.

Now, it is just time to say these words...

Receding is its fiery beauty

to the western heaven's infinity,

That mystical venture into dusk

is its routine glorious trip---

An endless prompt

for the insatiable poets.



In the sky it's the serene belle,

the cosmic masterpiece on symmetry

Summoning all eyes

to its dome of motley diffusion---

A day's closure so grandeur

hails the waking of night into action.




Shadows cast to the east such impressibility,

Evoking the fantasies of a mind so engrossed, so visionary.

The blending of darkness to the

dimming rays' heavenly hymn ---

All praised by the songs

of my singing pen.