As the sun sinks
It casts that silver bridge
Across the lake

Mind of engaging empathetic intellect
A woman of complex and lasting beauty

She is a smile in the dark

It was growing dark on this long southern evening, and suddenly, at the exact point her finger had indicated, the moon lifted a forehead of stunning gold above the horizon, lifted straight out of filigreed, light-intoxicated clouds that lay on the skyline in attendant veils.

Behind us, the sun was setting in a simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold....The new gold of moon astonishing and ascendant, he depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children, until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks.

I'd keep your beauty timeless.
like a flower pressed in a book, yes
I wouldn't let it fade
Folded in the chapters of my mind

The sun had set, but a faint pastel haze lingered in the mid-summer sky.