the sun sets on the gulf of mexico (and i forget to watch)

while we were in captiva, we watched a beautiful sunset and it reminded me of a poem i wrote years ago about when i was working on the oil rig in the gulf.  i've posted the poem before, but here it is again (with a picture of the almost gone captiva sunset) :)

The Sun Sets on the Gulf of Mexico (And I Forget to Watch)

He asks how long I think it will take the sun to disappear
after it touches the water. Thinking of a movie I saw once
where the sun seemed to disappear almost instantaneously,
I tell him thirty seconds.

“No,” he says. “It takes three minutes.”
Silence lapses between us as fiery light falls
on black water between the breaks of the waves.
He is talking but I am thinking of what to say
next. My gaze is on the water. I hear him
pause, so I smile in what I hope is a valid response,
turn back to the sun on the water.
I forget to pay attention to his watch.

Instead I watch the water until the light fades,
fascinated by the way the sunlight
is carried back to us from the horizon,
dancing along the blackness.
Remembering the sun,
I ask him, “Is it really three minutes?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something like that.”