"Let Evening Come," by 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

Jane Kenyon was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1947, the granddaughter of a fiery Methodist preacher, whose severity frightened her as a child, eventually leading her to turn away from religion for a time. But as an adult, she rediscovered Christianity, and many of her poems reflect her theological imagination (here’s another example). She once was asked how her faith shaped her writing, and she said, “My spiritual life is so much a part of my intellectual life and my feeling life that it’s really become impossible for me to keep it out of my work.” This idea of faith as part of both “intellectual life” and “feeling life” is worth contemplating.