I've long been a fan of Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia in 1995. She wrote this poem before she fell ill, but it's a powerful and comforting piece for me. In the face of death, Dylan Thomas urges us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light"; I have to say that the gentle acceptance I sense in this masterpiece is more in tune with my faith. It's not necessarily only about death, of course -- but that's how I'm choosing to read it these days.
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.
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