Thursday, July 23, 2015

Let Evening Come

I have been reading Donald Hall's 

new book called Essays After Eighty
I saw him stare at me from the library  shelf:


"New poems no longer come to me, with their prodigies

of metaphor and assonance. Prose endures."
First essay is Out the Window which he said was 
featured on Fresh Air after it was published. Later, 
he was interviewed after this book was out. 

Here is his wife's poem for this evening. Jane Kenyon 
died in 1995 at age 47. It is very beautiful. Behold. 

Let Evening Come

BY JANE KENYON
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.

1 comment:

GretchenJoanna said...

I have loved that poem since I first saw it, but hadn't read it in a long time. Thank you so much for posting it!