The Amber Persistence

A free verse poem about finding light in the shadows of the evening

The Amber Persistence

The sky is a bruised plum,
leaking indigo into the corners of the porch.
Evening presses its thumb against the day's ribs,
and everything aches in purple.

The wind moves slow tonight,
thick with things unsaid.
It tangles in my hair
like the past refusing
to loosen its grip.

But there-
along the fence line,
a stubborn shimmer.

Amber.

Not loud like noon,
not blazing like a promise,
but low and constant-
a coal that will not die
no matter how the dark
leans in.

I have learned something
from that color.

How it lingers
in the seam between light and loss.
How it refuses extinction.
How it glows not because it is unbroken,
but because it has survived the burn.

The porch boards creak beneath me,
remembering footsteps
that no longer climb these stairs.
The air tastes of endings,
of words that landed wrong
and love that thinned to thread.

Still-amber,in the last slit of sky.
In the windows across the road.
In the pulse beneath my ribs
that says,stay.

The night may bruise,
may swallow,
may stain everything indigo-
but I remain like that quiet fire
at the edge of extinction.
Not blazing,not begging.
Just burning away.

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