Let evening come

The work of Jane Kenyon (1947-95) is one of poetry's rarest and most heart-breaking gifts. After fighting depression for most of her life, Jane Kenyon died from leukaemia at the age of 47. Her quietly musical poems are moving, compassionate meditations intently probing the life of the heart and spirit. Observing and absorbing small miracles in everyday life, these apparently simple poems grapple with fundamental questions of human existence. They are psalms of love and death, God and nature, joy and despair "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.