Homesickness is a strange word for me, because I haven’t really left home – unlike many of my friends who came in from out-of-state. I am a convenient hour and a half away. The connection to my street and town and favorite bubble tea shop that has yet to be severed. And while the transition to college has had its fair share of ups and downs, there has been one constant factor in my life: the sunset. There’s something about Texas sunsets that makes one feel as if all is right with the world, no matter how bad the day has been. Texas sunsets don’t set, they descend, and whether you’re in College Station, Houston, or one of the hundreds of small towns in our huge state, it is truly unlike any other and deserves to be encapsulated in a poem.
You and I are going home, me to the mundane
and you to hidden orange glory
You descend, and yet you seem to ascend, flying
to some untold, watercolor-hued story
I wish I could gracefully exit like you,
To bow my golden head to the clouds, to gaze one last time at my domain,
To cling to the clouds as if to hold on to reality
To provide a blazing backdrop for the solitary, soaring crane.
And for all your beauty, you hurt me too,
as I am reminded how much you once gave me,
And how much you took away.
Shining upon my friend’s face as she waved goodbye from the car
Glowing on the faces of those who robbed me of my light,
vibrant on my most discordant days.
And yet you and I are still going home, me to all my memories
You, to yours – your memory of rolling plains and humans,
Complaining and loving and weeping in your shadow.
Do you feel lonely,
Now that no one welcomes your arrival with feasts galore?
Now that you are cursed at, spat upon, shielded from,
Or are you going home,
as I do, hungry and tired and sore
to forget the glare of reality
and to sink into a soft escape once more?
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To see the sunset at Texas A&M, try going to Rudder Tower, the golf course, or anywhere with a huge window.