Category: sunset

What Else is There?

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The way the trees empty themselves of leaves,
let drop their ponderous fruit,
the way the turtle abandons the sun-warmed log,
the way even the late-blooming aster
succumbs to the power of frost—

this is not a new story.
Still, on this morning, the hollowness
of the season startles, filling
the rooms of your house, filling the world
with impossible light, improbable hope.

And so, what else can you do
but let yourself be broken
and emptied? What else is there
but waiting in the autumn sun?
~Carolyn Locke “What Else?” from The Place We Become

So this is how life goes:

we are sowed, set down roots, bud and grow and flower and bloom and fruit and flourish,

then dry and change and wither and empty and break away
to be carried off beyond this air and water and soil.

We thrive where we are planted,
do what we could with a little nurture,
then transcend the here and now.

So shall we plant the next generation in healthy soil.
May we weed and water and feed as needed.
May we never seek to overshadow the sun
but step aside so its light fully shines on whoever comes next.

A Map of Dark Places

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St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote:
“The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass.
Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls,
but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.”

No matter what form the dragon may take,
it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws,
that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell,
and this being the case, it requires considerable courage
at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller.
~Flannery O’Connor from “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”

How close the clouds press this October first
and the rain—a gray scarf across the sky.
In separate hospitals my father and a dear friend
lie waiting for their respective operations,
hours on a table as surgeons crack their chests.
They were so brave when I talked to them last
as they spoke of the good times we would share
in the future. To neither did I say how much
I loved them, nor express the extent of my fear.
Their bodies are delicate glass boxes
at which the world begins to fling its stones.
Is this the day their long cry will be released?
How can I live in this place without them?
But today is also my son’s birthday.
He is eight and beginning his difficult march.
To him the sky is welcoming, the road straight.
Far from my house he will open his presents—
a book, a Swiss army knife, some music. Where
is his manual of instructions? Where is his map
showing the dark places and how to escape them?
~Stephen Dobyns “No Map” from Velocities:New and Selected Poems

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
~G.K. Chesterton from Tremendous Trifles

No, this is not the end—
hardly an end,
but a hard beginning.
There will always be 
a morning—
a rebirth.

So, here in the dark—
in a night bleaker than bleak—
in a time outside of time—
there is a mark
on the Holy map
of your soul
where you found
your Maker
in the hard, dark night—
and then lived to see
the light of dawn.
~Kimberly Phinney from “An Ode to Hard, Dark Nights

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

<Here there be dragons>
was any place on the ancient maps
that was unknown and unexplored,
a place to avoid at all costs~
or for the daring and carefree,
pointing to exactly the place to explore.

<Here there be dragons>
marks the remainder of our days
that dwell at the edge of life’s roadmap
~ scary, unpredictable, impenetrable ~
and often full of peril.

So many are lost without a map,
unable to find their way in the dark,
wrecked and wandering, weeping and wretched,
believing they have come to the end.

Yet this is not the end,
only the beginning.
A hard start – all rebirths are hard.

As I have been shown mercy, so
I must become mercy,
be loving where others show hate,
be giving when others take away,
build up while others tear down.

We walk together into the emerging light –
it’s right there where darkness used to dwell…
following God’s holy map of our soul.

On a rusty iron throne
Past the furthest star of space
I saw Satan sit alone,
Old and haggard was his face;
For his work was done and he
Rested in eternity.

And to him from out the sun
Came his father and his friend
Saying, now the work is done
Enmity is at an end:
And he guided Satan to
Paradises that he knew.

Gabriel without a frown,
Uriel without a spear,
Raphael came singing down
Welcoming their ancient peer,
And they seated him beside
One who had been crucified.
~James Stephens “The Fullness of Time”

Autumn Begins to be Inferred

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Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud,
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.
~Emily Dickinson from “Summer Begins to Have the Look”

The passing of the summer fills again
my heart with strange sweet sorrow, and I find
the very moments precious in my palm.
Each dawn I did not see, each night the stars
in spangled pattern shone, unknown to me,
are counted out against me by my God,
who charges me to see all lovely things…
~Jane Tyson Clement from “The Passing of Summer”

September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming —
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.
~Emily Dickinson “September’s Baccalaureate”


There’s something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate
A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
~Elinor Wylie from “Wild Peaches”

Summer now is waning and wistful; 
it has the look of packing up, and moving on without bidding adieu or looking back over its shoulder. 

Cooling winds have carried in darkening clouds with a hint of spit from the sky as I gaze upward to see (and smell) the change. 

A decent rain is long overdue yet there is temptation to bargain for a little more time. Though we are in need of a good drenching there are still onions and potatoes to pull from the ground, berries to pick before they mold on the vine, tomatoes not yet ripened, corn cobs just too skinny to pick. 

I’m not quite ready to wave goodbye to sun-soaked clear skies.

The overhead overcast is heavily burdened with clues of what is coming: earlier dusk, the feel of moisture, the deepening graying hues, the briskness of breezes. 

There is no negotiation possible.   I need to steel myself and get ready, wrapping myself in the soft shawl of inevitability.

So autumn advances with the clouds, taking up residence where summer has left off.  Though there is still clean up of the overabundance left behind, autumn will bring its own unique plans for display of a delicious palette of hues.

The truth is we’ve seen nothing yet.

Reveling in Rays of Light

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A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter.
I feel no obligation to deal with politics.
I do feel a responsibility to society.
A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy;
true, not false; lively, not dull;
accurate, not full of error.
He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

A writer must reflect and interpret his society, his world;
he must also provide inspiration and guidance and challenge.
Much writing today strikes me
as deprecating, destructive, and angry.
There are good reasons for anger, and I have nothing against anger.
But I think some writers have lost their sense of proportion,
their sense of humor, and their sense of appreciation.

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad:
one role of the writer today is to sound the alarm.
The environment is disintegrating, the hour is late,
and not much is being done.
Instead of carting rocks from the moon,
we should be carting the feces out of Lake Erie.
…I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer
if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle,
to accept the warming rays of the sun,
and to report them, whenever,
and if ever, they happen to strike me.
~E.B. White 1969 (on writing)

It is tiresome always feeling angry
about what it is happening in the world,
feeling that everything has become political.

I’m tired of reading (and writing) words of frustration,
but want to rail against the meanness that surrounds us,
and push back the bully to seek out a balance
of kindness, perspective and insight.

When I need to feel something other than mad,
I walk as far as I can go,
look up, revel in the gift of rays of light
and bask in their warmth and promise.

I will accept what the Sun has to offer
and tell about it
so that my anger drains away
like so much waste flushed down a pipe,
never to be seen again.

Lyrics:
Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen.

Going First Through the Dark Doorway

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In gratitude to the writing and wisdom of farmer Wendell Berry who, at age 92, passed through his porch’s dark doorway yesterday 8/31/26

All day he’s shoveled green pine sawdust
out of the trailer truck into the chute.
From time to time he’s clambered down to even
the pile. Now his hair is frosted with sawdust.
Little rivers of sawdust pour out of his boots.

I hope in the afterlife there’s none of this stuff
he says, while I broom off his jeans, his sweater flocked
with granules, his immersed-in-sawdust socks.
I hope there’s no bedding, no stalls, no barn

no more repairs to the paddock gate the horses
burst through when snow avalanches off the roof.
Although the old broodmare, our first foal, is his,
horses, he’s fond of saying, make divorces.

…he says
let’s walk up to the field and catch the sunset
and off we go, a couple of aging fools.

I hope, he says, on the other side there’s a lot
less work, but just in case I’m bringing tools.
~Maxine Kumin from “Chores”

photo by Emily Vander Haak

They sit together on the porch, the dark
Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.
Their supper done with, they have washed and dried
The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses,
Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two.
She sits with her hands folded in her lap,
At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,
And when they speak at last it is to say
What each one knows the other knows. They have
One mind between them, now, that finally
For all its knowing will not exactly know
Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding
Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.
~Wendell Berry “They Sit Together on the Porch”

If just for a moment,
when this world is tilting so far
we just might fall off,
we pause to look at where we’ve been
and get our feet back under us.

The porch is a good place to start:
a bridge to what is beyond
without leaving the familiar.

Outside, looking square at the unknown,
yet still hearing and smelling and tasting
the affection that dwells just inside these walls.

What could we want more
than to be missed when we step away?

Our voice, our words, our heart, our touch
never to be replaced,
its absence a hole impossible to fill…

When we are called back inside
where Love made us who we are,
may the “in between” of
time spent on the porch,
be even more treasured,
because two aging fools sat together there a spell.

front porch

The Roar of Sunset

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I go to nature not because
its flowers and sunsets speak
to me (though they do) or
listen to me inquire but

because I have filled it with
unintentionality, so that I
can miss anything personal in
the roar of sunset, so that

I can in beds of flowers hold
my head up too.
~A.R. Ammons from The Ridge Farm from Complete Poems

Take the tangle instead of the trouble it causes.
Take the world inside
as seriously as any other.
Take your elderly mother and father
at face value as they have to.
Take the mirror of the sky
mirrored in the bay.
Take the swell of new-mown hay
and the river conversing
where the valley opens its mouth
and the land begins to creak less
as the evening steals light away—
Take the wick in the far hills
and take the sun and the wind
and the look of nothing for granted.
Take a little less, all right
and try not to take fright.
Take the end in mind
instead of the end in sight.
~Brian Turner “Take This” from Taking Off

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from The Book of Hours

Each of us,
intentionally made by our Creator
in His image,
yet we discover the beauty and terror of living
in His shadow.

So much happens which we don’t intend
but there is nothing unintentional with God.

Books and lectures tell us to live intentionally
while each day contains something that
brings us to our knees.

I tell myself:
even though I don’t know what tomorrow will be,
I will not take fright
Like a flower, I’ll hold my head up
I’ll just keep going
while taking His Hand and following
wherever He intends to take me.

Ways to Waste Wisely My Days

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This world, after all our science and sciences,
is still a miracle;
wonderful, inscrutable, magical, and more,
to whosoever will think of it.

To awaken each morning
with a smile brightening my face;
to greet the day with reverence
for the opportunities it contains;
to approach my work with a clean mind;
to hold ever before me,
even in the doing of little things,
the ultimate purpose toward which I am working;
to meet men and women
with laughter on my lips
and love in my heart;
to be gentle, kind, and courteous
through all the hours;
to approach the night
with weariness that ever woos sleep 
and the joy that comes from work well done – 
this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.
~Thomas Dekker, 16th century British playwright

I work hard at wasting my days wisely. 

Summers are a classic opportunity to waste time and I do
– happily –
yet there is always a hint of regret:
I could have made more of a dewy bright morning,
an afternoon of cooling shadows,
or a full-moon twilight.

Or perhaps I could have made this day better
for someone else to waste.

How better to waste my days:
to find ways for my interactions to be more joyous,
if only through a smile,
a shared chuckle,
a kind word,
a generous gesture.

Waste away, dear days. What a wonderful world this could be.

The world, after all, is a miracle and needs us to notice.

The Very Top of Summer

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The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer,
the top of the live-long year,
like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel
when it pauses in its turning.

The weeks that come before
are only a climb from balmy spring,
and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn,
but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.

It is curiously silent, too,
with blank white dawns and glaring noons,
and sunsets smeared with too much color.
~Natalie Babbitt from Tuck Everlasting

After an early summer of moderate temperatures and occasional rains, we’re adjusting to temperatures in the nineties. No one asked me if enduring heat, humidity, and smoky skies was a reasonable way to conclude the first week of August.

So I sit silently rocking and sweating in the highest vantage point of this summer’s ferris wheel ride so far, hanging breathlessly mid-air, a brief pause in the endless cycle of sunny days.

Having just arrived at the top, I venture to look down, knowing I am simply along for the ride, and Someone else is at the controls. I might as well enjoy the view of all that is behind, alongside and in front of me, but especially what is below, holding me up in thin air.

All too quickly will come the rapid descent into autumn, my stomach leaping into my chest with the lurch forward into the unknown. As the climb to get here took so long, I am not quite ready for this inevitable drop back into the chill.

Hot or not, it’s best to celebrate August for all it’s splashiness and shining illumination necessitating sunglasses. At least I’m swinging in what little breeze there is, endeavoring to capture this moment, and every moment, forever.

Lyrics from poem by James Agee:
Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground
On this shining night
This shining night

Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground
On this shining night
This shining night

The late year lies down the north
All is healed, all is health
High summer holds the earth
Hearts all whole

The late year lies down the north
All is healed, all is health
High summer holds the earth
Hearts all whole

Sure on this shining night
Sure on this shining night

Sure on this shining night
I weep for wonder
Wandering far alone
Of shadows on the stars

Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground

Oh, this shining night
This shining night
The shining night
Sure on this shining night

Consumed by Harrowing Fire

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(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
~Sara Teasdale “There Will Come Soft Rains”

…one of man’s purposes is to assist God
in the work of “hallowing” the things of Creation.
By a tremendous heave of the spirit,
the devout man frees the divine sparks
trapped in the mute things of time;
he uplifts the forms and moments of creation,
bearing them aloft
into the rare air and hallowing fire
in which all clays must shatter and burst.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of spark and smoke.

The crash. The attic smashing into kitchen and parlour. The parlour into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar.

Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke.

Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaped rubble
and steam:

“Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”

~Ray Bradbury from the end of his 1950 short story “There Will Come Soft Rains”

So much of the world is beset by smoke and ashes this summer.

Not only are the fires roaring uncontrolled across landscapes, consuming everything in their path,
but harrowing fires burn within us as well.

We too are consumed,
left in a haze of gray and dust.

Even the smoke-painted sun traverses the sky
and then settles and sets,
swallowed by a seed puff ball,
absorbed and hallowed.

Like us, may it be released aloft this morning
transformed like a seed freed to the wind,
to rise unfettered and holy.

The Dimmer Switch

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Hours and hours of taffy pulled and stretched
to the furthest reaches of neighborhood lawns, universe
of grasses cool and tickling, cushions
for our bodies somersaulting and cartwheeling, tagging
you’re it, while somewhere above us

the dimmer switch of Heaven would be turning
down to lavender rose and deeper rose, and then
the voices of the mothers streaming in
through the darkening air
to come home, come home.
~Andrea Potos “Summer, Childhood” from Her Joy Becomes

Once when we were playing
hide-and-seek and it was time
to go home, the rest gave up
on the game before it was done
and forgot I was still hiding.
I remained hidden as a matter
of honor until the moon rose.
~Galway Kinnell “Hide-and-Seek 1933” from Strong Is Your Hold.

We all long for home.

As the day wanes, the sky dims to pastels, the breezes pick up, I want to be called home: to warmth, to a good evening meal, to hugs and cozy bed.

No matter what excitement exists outside the four walls of home, I am eager for the comfort of finding my way home.

In the villages and towns all across Japan, there is a traditional folk song played daily in the early evening over loudspeakers in the streets – a reminder to the children of the neighborhood that it is time to give up their games and head home. They stream out of the parks and streets, each to their own house or apartment.

The song that thousands of U.S. soccer fans belted out after the World Cup soccer games was “Take me home, country roads.”

Last night, as I left an evening meeting at our local homeless mission shelter, I passed through the huge room housing over a hundred sleeping people on cots and floor mattresses. The overhead lights had been dimmed, each person safe, warm, fed, and welcome – no longer invisible and hidden away in the woods or alleys.

May we all know how it is to be welcomed home, when overwhelming darkness comes, knowing the Light always returns.

Come home, come home;
you who are weary come home…

Photo of children running home in Basque, France by William Albert Allard