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.
[This is a poem by Jane Kenyon that has meant a lot to me especially since Lucy was born. I did not anticipate how overwhelmingly mortal I would feel the instant I had a baby. I have been intending for a long time to write it out and put it on the nursery wall. You can find a print copy either in Jane Kenyon’s Collected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2007), or in Let Evening Come: Poems (Graywolf, 1990).]