Barn again

© harrington

Hi! Thanks for stopping in. The good news is it's Friday; at the moment it's not snowing right here. The bad news is we're back to being surrounded by snow-covered fields. The good news is that, after watching carefully and paying attention the whole drive home, neither the robins nor the cranes nor the geese have panicked and headed south again. I saw the robins robining, the cranes craning and the geese geesing (goosing?). If the people that have to live out in this unseasonable weather all the time can take it, who are we to complain? We're not quite halfway through National Poetry Month. I decided while on the way home today that I wanted to share one of my all time favorite poems, Jane Kenyon's Let Evening Come. I was reminded of this poem in part because I took the scenic route home past several barns, some functional, others not.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through the 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.

Reading this makes me want to quit my job and just spend all my time trying to write something this wonderful. Using Gary Snyder's points, I'd say this is nature literate (fox, sandy den; wind dying down as evening comes); place literate (light moving up the bales as the sun moves down); Coyote as totem (done by the bottle in the ditch, the scoop and the air); Bear as totem (let evening come); further totems (cricket chafing); science and further science (dew collected, stars appear, silver horn); poem as creature of wild mind (self evident); crafty and get the work done (done, Done and DONE). Thanks for listening. Stop in again soon. Rants, raves and reflections served daily.