So I'll take the day and run
out across the open fields
Where the grass grows high
and the shadows fall
Where my eyes can see
all the colors in the air
So quiet that the wind
whistles in my hair
And takes the rising dust
and carries it away
— Kate Wolf
from "Unfinished Life"
Poems on Passing
LET EVENING COME
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
from Collected Poems. Graywolf Press
