Photo by Adel Emma

The legendary green flash is real.
After more than fifty years
living on our coast
and countless sunset viewings,
I finally saw it
as the last slice of ripe tangerine
slipped into
the horizon’s expectant mouth.

I had thought it a tall tale,
much like merpeople
or mythical giant squid
sworn to drag down ships of old.

My friends also saw it.
Leaving the sand
where we’d played our games,
we stopped to watch
the barest visible edge
of sun being swallowed.
High-fiving, we shouted in unison,
It’s real! I saw green, too!

(originally published by The Edge Magazine)

By Carolyn Chilton Casas

Carolyn Chilton Casas has seen her poetry appear in journals including Braided Way, Grateful Living, and One Earth Sangha and in anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, Thin Spaces & Sacred Spaces, and Women in a Golden State. She is a practicing Reiki Master and teacher who explores ways of healing in the articles she writes for energy and wellness magazines in several countries. More of her work can be found on www.carolynchiltoncasas.com and in her new book of essays and poems about healing, "Unlocking Ordinary Wonders."