Two Sunsets — Summary

Mike StoneContemplative

She looked

Softly

Through two sunsets

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

Three short lines hold a whole scene: someone looks, gently, through two sunsets. The poem never says who she is or who is watching, so we're left to piece it together from the images.

The most striking idea is "two sunsets." A sunset is usually something you look at, but here she looks through them, as if they were glass or a veil. One reading is that the sunsets are her eyes, glowing and warm, and the speaker feels the gaze passing through him. Another is that she is looking at something far beyond the ordinary, and the sunsets stand for time, endings, or memory. The poem doesn't settle this, and that openness is part of its charm.

The word "Softly" gets its own line, which slows everything down. The mood is tender, quiet, and a little wistful, since sunsets mean light fading. The speaker seems moved, even awed, by how gentle and deep a single look can be.

Read also

More by Mike Stone

All poems
AngryMike Stone

Moral Dilemmas 8

Nobody is as foolish as one who trusts. Only a fool could be so trusting. Nobody is as trusting as a fool. I'm nobody's fool.
RomanticMike Stone

Night Watch

Sometimes when I come to bed at night I watch you sleep, wrapped up So tightly in your blankets And you're so beautiful that
SadMike Stone

Is This It? #1

Is this how it all ends. Asking less and less from life. Hearing little of the sounds around you. Saying less or nothing at all.