Let the wind die down
"Let Evening Come" - 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.
+ Jane Kenyon
Kenyon died of leukemia at 47, thirty years ago. In life, she was often eclipsed by her husband, poet Donald Hall. But her poems have endured. Her grandfather preached hellfire; she fled the church. She returned. Her work preaches nothing, hides nothing. Faith breathes—not as dogma, but as lived experience.
Bill Green