The Idea of Order at Sunset on the Mendocino Coast

The Idea of Order At Sunset
on the Mendocino Coast

A single bat flew
in and out of the pine grove
like a confused swift,
diving and jerking
against the pastel horizon's
merging of violet to red.
It returned, a dark
dab against orange
like a defect in a movie
passing over the screen.

I made a small fire
of newspaper and twigs.
Smoke swirled as randomly
as a bat's flight. Sticks glowed
orange and disintegrated
into white ash. The bat
flew out, dipped
down to the high grass
and disappeared again.

Above the ceaseless sussuration
of the ocean, thin and white
against the high violet,
a sickle of moon shone,
too weak to be reflected--
and I feared shrinking
into something less than bat,
lint on a projector's lens,
a defect on your screen, maybe,
maybe as random.