Let Evening Come

I'm in the city today, but it's one of those days... when I'm hating being here.

"Let Evening Come," fall poem, a country poem, by Jane Kenyon... about letting go of summer, letting go of daylight; fearing not the cold nor the dark, knowing that we are never without comfort.


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 us 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.