Tag: sunset

The Fade to Twilight

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some words need to be

repeated
the way a sunset plays
every night
in the fade to twilight
the same scene
over and over
but never once
lost in its sameness
~Juniper Klatt “some words need to be” from I was raised in a house of water

Out of the deep and the dark,
A sparkling mystery, a shape,
Something perfect,
Comes like the stir of day:
One whose breath is a fragrance,
One whose eyes reveal the road to stars,
The wind in his countenance,
The glory of heaven upon his back.
He steps like a vision hung in air,
Diffusing the passion of eternity;
His abode is the sunlight of morn,
The music of eve his speech:
In his sight,
One shall turn from the dust of the grave,
And move upward to the woodland.
~Yone Noguchi “The Poet”

Once in your life you pass
Through a place so pure
It becomes tainted even
By your regard, a space
Of trees and air where
Dusk comes as perfect ripeness.
Here the only sounds are
Sighs of rain and snow,
Small rustlings of plants
As they unwrap in twilight.
This is where you will go
At last when coldness comes.
It is something you realize
When you first see it,
But instantly forget.
At the end of your life
You remember and dwell in
Its faultless light forever.
~Paul Zimmer “The Place” from Crossing to Sunlight Revisited.

I like the slants of light; I’m a collector.
That’s a good one, I say…
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I won’t forget the glow on the hill as the sun drops,
centering behind our sentinel tree.
I won’t forget the rays coming through the branches,
glistening on a tattered web
and an evening primrose unwrapping.
I won’t forget the way the air itself changes as the color spreads,
like a fragrant scent carried on the wind.

The light is faultless but I am not.
My collection of slants of light
and words to describe them
may fade with time.

Even so, it was – maybe just once –
so perfect, so pure, so ripe.
And I’ll remember I was there to witness it.

Standing Here, Empty-Handed

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Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
~Mary Oliver “The Sun”

There is no word to describe
its faithful return each day.

I struggle to hang on to it,
unwilling to let this lambent light
slip through my fingers~

Yet I remain empty-handed,
too focused on things less illuminating.

Soon darkness will begin to claim our days again.
So I grasp hold of this warmth and light
and hold on as long as I’m able,
burnishing my readiness for eternity.

Surrounded By a Winter Sunset

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How can I feel so warm   
Here in the dead center of January? I can   
Scarcely believe it, and yet I have to, this is   
The only life I have. 
~James Wright from “A Winter Daybreak above Vence”

sunset1131812
to the northwest
sunset1131816
to the north

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
  Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
  I never kept before.
Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
  Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
  Falls the remorseful day.
~A.E. Houseman from “How Clear, How Lovely Bright”

sunset1131816
to the northeast
sunset1131810
to the east
sunset1131814
to the southeast

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
~R.S. Thomas “The Moor”

sunset113188
to the south
sunset1131811
to the southwest

So welcome in the dead center of January:
a surround-sunset experience on our farm – 360 degrees of evolving color and patterns, streaks and swirls, gradation and gradual decline.

All is silent. No bird song, no wind, no spoken prayer.
Yet communion takes place with the air breaking and feeding me like manna from heaven.

Witnessing the light bleeding out all around me:

I will squander my days no more, treasuring each as sheer gift.
I will seek to serve my God, church, family, friends, and community.
I will be warmed on this chilly winter day even as it descends to darkness, knowing light and hope will return.

sunset113181
to the west
sunset113182
to the west
sunset113171
to the west

Watch with Awe as it Unfolds…

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People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be.
When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying,
“Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.”
I don’t try to control a sunset.
I watch with awe as it unfolds.
~Carl Rogers from A Way of Being

Once I saw a chimpanzee gaze at a particularly beautiful sunset
for a full 15 minutes,
watching the changing colors
[and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.
~Adriaan Krotlandt, Dutch ethologist in Scientific American (1962)

There is much about this life we cannot control.
We like to think we can.
We even try.

We are mere witness to changes wrought by the Creator,
how He reaches deep in a person or
how He paints in the skies.

Watch in awe.

While the World Tilts Toward Sleep

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The cat calls for her dinner.
On the porch I bend and pour
brown soy stars into her bowl,
stroke her dark fur.
It’s not quite night.
Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.
Above my neighbor’s roof, a transparent
moon, a pink rag of cloud.
Inside my house are those who love me.
My daughter dusts biscuit dough.
And there’s a man who will lift my hair
in his hands, brush it
until it throws sparks.
Everything is just as I’ve left it.
Dinner simmers on the stove.
Glass bowls wait to be filled
with gold broth. Sprigs of parsley
on the cutting board.
I want to smell this rich soup, the air
around me going dark, as stars press
their simple shapes into the sky.
I want to stay on the back porch
while the world tilts
toward sleep, until what I love
misses me, and calls me in.
~Dorianne Laux “On the Back Porch” from Awake

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” from A Timbered Choir

If just for a moment,
when the world feels like it is tilting so far
I just might fall off,
there is a need to pause
to look at where I’ve been
and get my feet back under me.

The porch is a good place to start:
a bridge to observe “out there”
without completely leaving the safety of “in here.”

I am outside looking squarely at uncertainty
yet still hear and smell and taste
the love that dwells just inside these walls.

What do any of us want more
than to be missed if we were to step away
or be taken from this life?

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 to the Love
that made us who we are,
may we leave behind the outside world
more beautiful because we were part of it.

Best of Barnstorming Photos: Winter/Spring 2025

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Written as with a Sunbeam

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The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for,
among old parchments, or musty records.
They are written, as with a sun beam,
in the whole volume of human nature,
by the hand of the divinity itself;
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
~Alexander Hamilton, from  “The Farmer Refuted”

What sparkling flashes of God’s wit and brilliance—
His coruscations—
have caused your mind today to
run back up the sunbeam to the sun and given you cause
to give thanks and to worship the Lord?
~C.S. Lewis from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

photo by Nate Gibson

God illuminates through His Word,
not once but twice. 

In the beginning, He created
the sun and the moon to shine
upon bodies, hearts, and souls. 

Then, He came to light the world
from below as well as from above
so we could be saved from darkness.

By His descent to us,
because He leaves heaven’s light
to be in our arms and by our sides-
He illuminates us
so we reflect the light He brings:
loved
saved
despite all our efforts
to remain in the dark.

photo by Nate Gibson
AI image created for this post

The Dangerous Business of Going Out Your Door

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Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Still ’round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
~J.R.R. Tolkien “Bilbo’s Walking Song”

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off too.
~J.R.R. Tolkien – Bilbo to Frodo in Fellowship of the Rings

I love these country roads in June, at dawn or dusk,
the light and shadow playing over the path,
promising summer breezes and simple joys.

When we walk these roads,
we pass by deep ditches,
hop the potholes and avoid the bumps.

Still it’s a dangerous business,
walking out the front door into life,
not knowing just where we may be swept off to.

Passing by secret gates and overgrown paths,
I take the familiar route that leads me home,
following the Master Guide so I don’t lose my way.

A Shimmering Evening Chorus

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Evening, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,
The few first stars are white,–
Oh let me like the birds
Sing before night.
~Sara Teasdale “Dusk in June”

I am half agony, half hope…
~Jane Austen from Persuasion

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground. 
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 I weep for wonder
wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
~James Agee “Sure on this Shining Night”

This time of uncertainty holds the earth captive;
our hearts fearful of war in a shimmering summer dusk.

I weep for wonder in hope for a healing peace,
at this time, at this place, singing under these stars.

May we rest assured, on another shining night,
sometime, we know not when, we know not how,
we will lay down arms and live without threat of war.

Amen and Amen.

The Seasons, They Go Round and Round

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It’s deep time here, this barrow grave five thousand years old,
where we follow like sheep behind the guide to the heart
of its cruciform center.

I’ve never been in a space so dark.
What was it like to fear that the sun would not return,
that crops would wither, deer flee,
that night’s dark cloak was all there was?

But miraculously, on the lip of the solstice,
the light returned, liquid and golden,
ran down the narrow corridor,
hit the back wall, splashed in the stone basin,
and they knew summer would come back, run to fruit.
Light, dark, freeze, thaw, seedtime,
harvest, wheel of the year, the spiral dance.

What would they make of our device-laden lives,
fossil-fueled cars, over-stocked larders?
Who stands in the dark and listens now, gaping at the stars?
— Barbara Crooker, “Newgrange” from The Book of Kells

Finnis Soutterain underground

Finnis Soutterain underground

There is nothing so dark as centuries-old underground tunnels and portal tombs, some positioned with an opening to capture a beam of light exactly at either the winter or summer solstice, illuminating what dwells in blackness the rest of the year.

The more recent ninth century soutterain tunnels were refuge for Christians hiding from invaders, keeping whole villages safe from capture.

The dolmens and portal graves are Neolithic structures built before the pyramids. They still exist today as they were constructed to last by people serious about their beliefs.Though those people are long dust, the stones and tunnels remain as they were, to protect the spirits of the departed.

What would they think now of our extravagance,
our plethora of goods and foods,
our ways of crippling others remotely
using weapons dropped from the sky,
but also the weapons of internet disinformation and hacking,
hallucinations and lies from artificial intelligence?

Our ways make stealing, pillaging, raping and enslaving strangers
seem so… messy.

We mustn’t fool ourselves. We are still messy.

We moderns are lost in our over-abundance of light year round, scarcely noting the calendar or the passing of the longest and shortest days.

I bow my head to the remarkable people of strength who have preceded us, who sought mightily to preserve the significance of a Light returning to penetrate their darkness.

Legananny Dolmen, Northern Ireland
Legananny dolmen
Kilfeaghan Dolmen
AI image created for this post

Lyrics:
Daylight comes and nighttime goes, nighttime falls, day flies
Round and round the cycle goes,
we live and then we die and then we live and then we die.
The seasons of my life go round, the sunshine and the rain
The fallow and the fruitful days,
the joy and then the pain and then the joy and then the pain.
As light below, so light above, so light in all we see

The light is in the act of love, the light that sets us free,
yes, it’s the light that sets free.
Daylight comes…