And the Sun Keeps Setting

Thoughts, feelings, and memories documented from

September to December, 2025

Marika Christine

The Best Pancakes of my Life

Warm blueberries burst between my teeth

Maple syrup from a plastic bottle

Drips onto the dusty picnic table

garnished with needles dropped

by great gray pines overhead

Sadie unzips the door to our red three-person tent

Emerging like a baby bear aroused by the smell

Of breakfast while Maria strums the nylon-string guitar

With a shoelace strap and dents from

Traveling across the country and back

The joy of eating pancakes together at eight am

In the waking warmth of too-hot June

Donut Shop Didactic

The value of gold is up right now

Time to sell your grandmother's broken chains.

My finance friend doesn’t know what product they sell

Ones and zeros remain forever intangible

Ten minutes run away fast if you

Don’t keep track

It’s okay to listen even

If you already know the answer

When a mystery man in a feathered fedora tips ten dollars,

Don’t question it.

“Without ordinary life, there is no art."

Jeff Buckley

Neuroscience

I want you

To see my chrysanthemum brain

With all its peaks and valleys and its ugly pink.

But I can tell that you just know me for my thighs,

And fingers,

and eyes that reflect your perfect self, like

Tinted car windows used

casually to check your outfit.

You’d never believe that my temporal lobe is

A system of ladders and cobwebs,

Buckets of paint half dried,

And fog mingling with yellow buds…

Scientists still don’t understand the origin

Of sadness that burrowed in a pocket

Behind the cavity of my left eye

A blunt glass bead, threatening to shatter.

The chemicals in my brain fell out of balance

And nose-dived towards the watery Earth

Like the famous airplane that collided with

a flock of Canadian Geese

And miraculously landed on the Hudson River.

I guess the blue pill I take each night is that pilot

Trying to stabilize the aircraft

And my brain is the sabotage of birds

with mangled wings and shattered beaks

My brain is a puddle of blue flowers

But you only see a rock

skipping endlessly on the surface

Of a silken river that never

Falls towards the bottom

never deepens

On Belonging

Papa faced his fear of heights

on the observation deck of

The Empire State Building

it was cold, but not snowing

a hazy November in 2007

Papa doesn’t like crowds or concrete -

he prefers watching birds, not people

but there we were,

on the one hundred and third floor

in the loudest city in America.

There’s a photo to prove it.

I’m wearing a scarf purchased from a

street vendor after a bout of begging

and bargaining with mom.

Curly knitted blue fibers cover my

oh-so-embarassing neon windbreaker,

announcing to the black leather jacket-wearing

New Yorkers that this ten-year-old is

definitely from out of town.

I feel a similar sensation

in my father’s homeland, where

I once pronounced Dutch vowel sounds

with perfection

but now, when I open my mouth to speak,

I might as well be wearing that

ugly bright windbreaker and

a sign that says:

“I don’t belong here.”

I imagine my mom holding

a newborn in a new country

tiny fingers curled around

silk fabric - white with tiny red roses -

once her favorite pajamas,

torn into pieces as a make-shift

baby blanket

Did she cling to me

as a shield of belonging

as I grabbed at her hair

in that tactile way that babies learn

the nature of the world

“Family of Great Horned Owls Become Local Celebrities”

Alabama becomes Esmerelda Street

twisting and turning around the hill

like a snake engulfs its prey.

Coyote in the glow of the

Street lamp skitters cross the road

One follows boldly

Another paces behind

Sandy fur and long snout

Disappear into the bush behind

The baseball diamond

Family of great horned owls

Become local celebrities

Retired folks post up with

Binoculars to share

I remember another time I encountered an owl…

I was driving alone in the dark

Stanislaus National Forest, looking for

A campsite at 38.0013°N 119.9046°W

There was a fork in the road

I stopped, desperately uncertain

When a glowing Barn Owl alighted on the left

Leaning path and

guided me toward safety

Daylight Savings

Telephone polls rest

Silhouetted against the fog-drenched

4pm sky

A red-tailed hawk lands momentarily

And is chased away by

2 crows

Always pickin’ fights

There is a thin plastic bag caught, shimmering

Like iridescent silk

In the rafters of an Eucalyptus tree

Could be a Halloween ghost

We say a prayer for Kit Kat

Huddled around her altar on 16th street

A marigold halo surrounds photos of our beloved bodega cat

Killed by a self-driving robo car

“So it goes.”

We’re living in the future and the past at the same time

I’m everywhere except the present

Reading Slaughterhouse Five

My health insurance just went up by

$275 per month

I could calculate how many

Hours I’d have to work to pay that off

But it might make me cry

Rock and Roll

After We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

And The Golden Shovel by Terrance Hayes

On a warm night in Oakland, we

wait in line at the box office doors. Real

paper tickets and the folks around us simmer cool.

Low-end pounds my heart, we

find each other, you’re on my left

hands on my neck, slow dancing old-school.

Red lights flash like indoor lightning, we

clap hands like hurricanes lurk

high in the atmosphere. It’s getting late

and there's work in the morning, but we

aren’t concerned about the strike

of the clock hitting twelve. You drive straight

home, almost miss the exit, but then we

find ourselves in your room. I sing

along to the records you choose. The sin

of trumpet players floats from the speakers. We

unwind on top of your quilt that's thin

enough for summer nights. One more gin

and tonic, the ice cubes clink together as we

cheers each other. Your fingers drum those jazz

rhythms on my skin, warm and smooth as June.

This moment is a delicious exhale we

share until the roses die.

This electric night must end soon.

Monterey Cypress

The sun lowers to my left

Spitting shards of gold that are

Chewed up by ocean waves

And split in two

Leftover cobalt

Clashes with orange

As my four thousandth day

Comes to a close

Wind showers me in sand

But I don’t really mind

My fibrous bark is gnarled

And rough to resist today’s climate

I stretch and bend

Wherever the salty air flows

These one hundred years have changed me

and the sun keeps setting all the same

Freedom Flotilla

Despite the anticipation of resistance

45 boats continue

Tightening ropes like veins compress in fear.

At home, monsters on a screen

climb out and thrash into me.

Something must be done.

Every time I eat a meal

I think of families who are starving

Because Israel placed a blockade on their life.

Gretta on the sea

Sailing towards a cursed dream

destined for interception

I don’t understand

How human beings could look another in the eyes

And justify murder

I don’t understand

How nations with wealth can break laws with no consequences

Like swatting away a buzzing fly

I don’t understand

How to help when food and medical supplies are

Systematically denied

Still, Sumund floats forward

Sharing persistence and hope

Strongly speaking the singular message:

Palestine will be free.