Let Evening Come

Last night I landed in the Fairbanks Airport at 8:30 p.m. after rising in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at 2 a.m. AK time, after three flights, two layovers, one delay, four sandwiches, and three pounds of cherries.

The sun was arcing along the horizon, shining over a storm that was slinking away. The dark clouds and remaining brave sprinkles made a double rainbow over the brilliant green hills as the plane landed. As I climbed wearily upstairs with my two appropriate dogs (no retriever necessary), I reflected that we'll soon have proper evenings, mornings, and nights.

The quality of light is special in the Fall, something I'd noticed even in California, which doesn't exactly get a Fall, more like a few brilliant days in mid November that occur in between the two seasons of Not-Rain and Rain.

In Alaska and in California, the sunlight dances the same dance, before fading to winter.


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