There's the sun

There's the sun, low, burning the horizon.
Turn.
There's the moon, no higher,
Sweet with promises, golden and serene.
Me, I stand on a hill, halfway between.

My project's finished.
We'd worked non-stop just to wrap it up
And I'd been left feeling kinda down,
So I climbed up the high point in town,
The old dump, capped over with grass
And in fact now quite nice,
Certainly the high point for miles around.

"Which is rising? which is setting?
Tell me friend, tell me true,
I've stepped outside of time
I haven't a clue."
My friend doesn't answer
He's dealing with some anger
- Not without justification -
I've drunk all the wine,
He's left with none.
Though he's just the bottle,
He feels he deserved a little.

"Sun, oh my Sun, tell me true,
Is it you who's rising? Is it you?"
Its reply:
"From here I see a young couple,
Working in their yard.
Sweat gleams on their arms and legs,
Sweat dampens their t-shirts.
They've tilled the soil along the walk,
They've mixed in compost and phosphate,
They've dug careful holes two feet apart.
From a child's pool filled with water
They've taken bundles of thorny branches,
Drab, devoid of color,
And set them in the holes.
They've carefully returned the dirt,
And adjusted each's height.
Now as the hose wets the earth,
They sit side by side on the grass,
A beer nestled between them.
Their eyes don't see the sticks,
They're fixed on the roses -
On next Spring's promises."

"Moon, oh my Moon, tell me true
Is it you who's rising? Is it you?"
"I look through a skylight
Down into a loft, brightly floodlit.
On the wall's an old painting, a print
Of Adam and Eve under a tree,
Its bows bent with fruit.
Behind them's an orchard in impossible bloom.
She holds the apple for him to taste,
He looks at her not the fruit
In his eyes there's nothing but trust.
Before the painting a woman moves,
Half listening to the photographer's suggestions,
Half thinking of the painting,
Half thinking of her imagined partner.
All the pictures taken,
Onto a rug she tumbles and they couple,
His mind still a tangle
Of light, of shadow,
Of beauty, of color,
Of form, of angle,
And she, lying there,
Touching the frame with a lifted ankle,
Looks up at the painting.
'What's with the apple,'
She asks when they're done.
'Maybe it symbolizes her nice gift to Adam,'
He replies, abstracted no longer, cupping a breast.
'Idiot, she says, slapping his wrist,
'Everyone likes an apple,
It's her gift to us all.
There never was a fall.'"

I see there's a message on my cell.
"They like it, more funding's sure to come,
Let's meet tomorrow and talk out what's to be done."
So I set off down the hill,
Mind hot with code, hot with design, hot with planning.
The answer for now is that both are rising.