[1066] Let Evening Come

Guest poem submitted by Kathy, <KassieB@>:

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.

	-- Jane Kenyon

Those of us who had the good fortune of spending at least some of our
childhood in a rural setting must understand this poem in a different way
than those without that experience. Still, any child who has taken the time
to listen to a cricket chirping on a hot summer night knows something about
this poem.

By showing us the dew gathering, the stars and moon appearing, and a bottle
lying in a ditch, Jane Kenyon reveals the enduring peace of the natural
world. Her ability to perceive this peace seems especially remarkable in
light of her long struggle with bipolar disease. She knew well that the
evening and darkness will come, but she also knew that there was comfort in
the middle of the darkness.

I can't read this poem without thinking of Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill. The
sense of the sacramental nature of the physical world pervades them both and
I suppose for that reason they are two of my favorite poems.

Kathy.

[Minstrels Links]

Jane Kenyon:
Poem #474, Otherwise
Poem #1004, Finding a Long Gray Hair
Poem #1066, Let Evening Come

Dylan Thomas:
Poem #14, Prologue
Poem #38, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Poem #58, The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower
Poem #138, Fern Hill
Poem #225, Poem In October
Poem #270, Under Milk Wood
Poem #335, After the Funeral (In memory of Ann Jones)
Poem #405, Altarwise by Owl-Light (Stanzas I - IV)
Poem #476, In my craft or sullen art
Poem #568, Especially when the October Wind
Poem #1035, The Hand that Signed the Paper


[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1066.html