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.