Evening's Elegy

The wet canvas where no paint dries

descends its gray veil that thickens with the slipping sun

Purple and gray drip down over persimmon and gold

All is flux. All is liquid.

Do you see it?

Even as children

playing

fading

light

brought mourning for the evening.

Walking toward home,

our pockets held secrets seen -

rock, shell, twig, acorn

and unseen -

age, loss, time, sundown.

We trudged sidewalks where even the cracks

were too blackened to track.

We fretted and laughed

for our poor mothers' backs

long since broken

but they never let on.

Do you remember the longing

twilight inflicted?

Sorrow for the loss of the light that made us

shine in joyful splendor?

Now we creak and sway

in time's dim comfort,

no longer saddened by life's dusk

but smiling,

accepting

the sun is sinking

the dark is rising

to wash and carry us

to blanket us and bury us.

We mourn the evening's

low hums and moans

as it dies and dissolves

into the speckled night.