~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Sasha Gottfried

I Remember the Day the Sun Disappeared

Wildfires were burning everywhere, smoke

filled the air, covering the clouds so completely

we all woke to darkness.

It was the eeriest morning

I have ever seen. This dark

world thrust upon us surprisingly, 

with no notice.

No alarms rang out. No loudspeakers

broadcast the news: attention

neighbors, there will be no sunlight

today. We hope to bring it back as soon as possible.

I stepped into the living room. Looked

out the window. The sky had become

a misty dark shadow of itself.

It scared me, like a dream upon awakening.

I walked down my familiar street, feeling

my way through the heaviness

of the shroud that lay upon us, its weird

shape and noiseless sound.

It felt like a mysterious omen, portending

the end of the world.

Strange how much light means to us.

How we need it.

How we count on it to cheer us

when all else fails.

Sasha Gottfried is happily retired, and thrilled to have rediscovered her love of writing now that her time is her own. She grew up in a New Jersey suburb on the ocean, playing in the sand with her twin sister, riding the waves of the Atlantic in the summers and ice skating on her neighborhood pond in the winter. She escaped from the harsh (though beautiful) East Coast winters to move to the Bay Area in 1981. Her poems have been published in Fresh Ink and in Milvia Street.