Sunset Conundrum Poem by David Welch

I stopped upon the Blue Ridge road,
at a clearing by a vista bold,
seeing miles of wooded ridge
and the sun settling down a smidge.

Reds and yellows streaking out,
across the sky and dappled clouds,
twas frozen there by vast beauty,
frozen also was the writer in me.

My mind should swiftly whirl in words,
to draw nothing now, quite absurd!
The tones and tints, so grand-standing,
across the endless heavens spanning…

Where was now the flowing lyric?
The sudden flush of creative spirit?
Was my job not to probe inside,
to find meaning in the crimson sky?

Would this not just fade to black,
If man did not pick up the slack,
if pen on paper did not write,
preserving the moments before night?

It must fall upon our fragile minds,
to give a weight of truth to time,
but from now until that final gasp,
I know I'm not up to the task.

The block of language, ever great...
some things it cannot replicate,
and all that I could ever really do,
was build a shadow of the truth.

But still I write it, still I push,
driven on until I'm fit to bust.
For if I do not at least try to speak,
then it's just sunlight, behind a peak.