Let Evening Come Read online

  Let Evening Come

  (1990)

  JANE KENYON

  Let Evening Come

  (1990)

  — for Pauline Kenyon

  So strange, life is. Why people do not​

  go around in a continual state of surprise​

  is beyond me.

  William Maxwell

  Three Songs at the End of Summer

  I

  A second crop of hay lies cut​

  and turned. Five gleaming crows​

  search and peck between the rows.

  They make a low, companionable squawk,​

  and like midwives and undertakers​

  possess a weird authority.

  Crickets leap from the stubble,​

  parting before me like the Red Sea.

  The garden sprawls and spoils.

  Across the lake the campers have learned​

  to water-ski. They have, or they haven’t.​

  Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone​

  suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

  Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,​

  fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.

  The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod​

  brighten the margins of the woods.

  Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;​

  water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

  II

  The cicada’s dry monotony breaks​

  over me. The days are bright​

  and free, bright and free.

  Then why did I cry today​

  for an hour, with my whole​

  body, the way babies cry?

  III

  A white, indifferent morning sky,​

  and a crow, hectoring from its nest​

  high in the hemlock, a nest as big​

  as a laundry basket. . .

  In my childhood​

  I stood under a dripping oak,​

  while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,​

  waiting for the school bus​

  with a dread that took my breath away.

  The damp dirt road gave off​

  this same complex organic scent.

  I had the new books—words, numbers,​

  and operations with numbers I did not​

  comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled​

  by use, in a blue canvas satchel​

  with red leather straps.

  Spruce, inadequate, and alien​

  I stood at the side of the road.

  It was the only life I had.

  After the Hurricane

  I walk the fibrous woodland path to the pond.

  Acorns break from the oaks, drop

  through amber autumn air

  which does not stir. The dog runs way ahead.

  I find him snuffling on the shore​

  among water weeds that detached in the surge;​

  a broad, soft band of rufous pine needles;​

  a bar of sand; and shards of mica​

  glinting in the bright but tepid sun.

  Here, really, we had only hard rain.

  The cell I bought for the lamp​

  and kettles of water I drew remain​

  unused. All day we were restless, drowsy,​

  afraid, and finally, let down:​

  we didn’t get to demonstrate our grit.

  In the full, still pond the likeness​

  of golden birch leaves and the light they emit​

  shines exact. When the dog sees himself​

  his hackles rise. I stir away his trouble​

  with a stick.

  A crow breaks in upon our satisfaction.

  We look up to see it lift heavily

  from its nest high in the hemlock, and the bough

  equivocate in the peculiar light. It was

  the author of Walden, wasn’t it,

  who made a sacrament of saying no.

  After Working Long on One Thing

  Through the screen door​

  I hear a hummingbird, inquiring​

  for nectar among the stalwart

  hollyhocks—an erratic flying​

  ruby, asking for sweets among​

  the sticky-throated flowers.

  The sky won’t darken in the west​

  until ten. Where shall I turn​

  this light and tired mind?

  Waking in January before Dawn

  Something that sounded like the town​

  plow just went by: there must be snow.

  What was it I fell asleep thinking​

  while the shutters strained on their hooks​

  in the wind, and the window frames​

  creaked as they do when it’s terribly cold,​

  and getting colder fast? I pulled​

  the covers over my head.

  Now through lace curtains I can see​

  the huge Wolf Moon going down,​

  and soon the sky will lighten, turning​

  first gray, then pink, then blue. . . .

  How frightened I was as a child, waking​

  at Grandma’s, though I saw​

  that the animal about to pounce​

  —a dreadful, vaguely organized beast—​

  was really the sewing machine.

  Now the dresser reclaims visibility,​

  and yesterday’s clothes cohere​

  humpbacked and headless on the chair.

  Catching Frogs

  I crouched beside the deepest pool,​

  and the smell of damp and moss​

  rose rich between my knees. Water-striders​

  creased the silver-black silky surface.

  Rapt, I hardly breathed. Gnats​

  roiled in a shaft of sun.

  Back again after supper I’d see​

  a nose poke up by the big flat stone​

  at the lip of the fall; then the humped​

  eyes and the slippery emerald head,​

  freckled brown. The buff membrane​

  pulsed under the jaw while​

  subtleties of timing played in my mind.

  With a patience that came like grace​

  I waited. Mosquitoes moaned all​

  around. Better to wait. Better to reach​

  from behind. ... It grew dark.

  I came into the warm, bright room​

  where Father held aloft the evening​

  paper, and there was talk, and maybe​

  laughter, though I don’t remember laughter.

  In the Grove: The Poet at Ten

  She lay on her back in the timothy​

  and gazed past the doddering​

  auburn heads of sumac.

  A cloud—huge, calm,

  and dignified—covered the sun

  but did not, could not, put it out.

  The light surged back again.

  Nothing could rouse her then

  from that joy so violent

  it was hard to distinguish from pain.

  The Pear

  There is a moment in middle age​

  when you grow bored, angered​

  by your middling mind,​

  afraid.

  That day the sun​

  burns hot and bright,​

  making you more desolate.

  It happens subtly, as when a pear​

  spoils from the inside out,​

  and you may not be aware​

  until things have gone too far.

  Christmas Away from Home

  Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.​

  Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life​

  is intact. Who’s painted, who’s insulated​

  or
put siding on, who’s burned the lawn​

  with lime—that’s the news on Ardmore Street.

  The leaves of the neighbor’s respectable​

  rhododendrons curl under in the cold.

  He has backed the car

  through the white nimbus of its exhaust

  and disappeared for the day.

  In the hiatus between mayors

  the city has left leaves in the gutters,

  and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.

  We pass the house two doors down, the one​

  with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,​

  an establishment without irony.

  All summer their putto empties a water jar,​

  their St. Francis feeds the birds.

  Now it’s angels, festoons, waist-high​

  candles, and swans pulling sleighs.

  Two hundred miles north I’d let the dog​

  run among birches and the black shade of pines.​

  I miss the hills, the woods and stony​

  streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves

  against my sides seems loud, and a crow​

  caws sleepily at dawn.

  By now the streams must run under a skin​

  of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,​

  like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,​

  forwarded, will begin to reach me here.

  Taking Down the Tree

  “Give me some light!” cries Hamlet’s​

  uncle midway through the murder​

  of Gonzago. “Light! Light!” cry scattering​

  courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,​

  it’s dark at four, and even the moon​

  shines with only half a heart.

  The ornaments go down into the box:​

  the silver spaniel, My Darling​

  on its collar, from Mother’s childhood​

  in Illinois; the balsa jumping jack​

  my brother and I fought over,​

  pulling limb from limb. Mother​

  drew it together again with thread​

  while I watched, feeling depraved​

  at the age of ten.

  With something more than caution​

  I handle them, and the lights, with their​

  tin star-shaped reflectors, brought along​

  from house to house, their pasteboard​

  toy suitcase increasingly flimsy.

  Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.

  By suppertime all that remains is the scent​

  of balsam fir. If it’s darkness​

  we’re having, let it be extravagant.

  Dark Morning: Snow

  It falls on the vole, nosing somewhere​

  through weeds, and on the open​

  eye of the pond. It makes the mail​

  come late.

  The nuthatch spirals head first​

  down the tree.

  I’m sleepy and benign in the dark.​

  There’s nothing I want. . . .

  Small Early Valentine

  Wind plays the spy,​

  opens and closes doors,​

  looks behind shutters—​

  a succession of clatters. I​

  know perfectly well​

  where you are: in that​

  not-here-place you go to,​

  the antipodes. I have your note​

  with flights and phone numbers​

  for the different days. . . .

  Dear one, I have made the bed​

  with the red sheets. Our​

  dog’s the one who lay​

  on the deep pile of dung,​

  lifting his head and ears​

  when after twenty years​

  Odysseus approached him.

  After the Dinner Party

  A late-blooming burgundy hollyhock sways​

  across the kitchen window in a light breeze​

  as I draw a tumbler of well-water at the sink.​

  We’re face to face, as in St. Paul’s Epistles​

  or the later novels of Henry James.

  The cold rains of autumn have begun.​

  Driving to Hanover I must have seen​

  a thousand frogs in the headlights​

  crossing the gleaming road. Like sheep urged​

  by a crouching dog they converged​

  and flowed, as they do every fall.

  I couldn’t help hitting some.

  At dinner I laughed with the rest,​

  but in truth I prefer the sound​

  of pages turning, and coals shifting​

  abruptly in the stove. I left before ten​

  pleading a long drive home.

  The smell of woodsmoke hung​

  over the small villages along the way.

  I passed the huge cold gray stone​

  buildings left by the chaste Shakers.

  Any window will still open with one finger.

  Hands to work, and hearts to God. . . .

  Why do people give dinner parties? Why did I​

  say I’d come? I suppose no one there was entirely​

  at ease. Again the flower leans this way:​

  you know it’s impolite to stare. I’ll put​

  out the light. . . . And there’s an end to it.

  Leaving Barbados

  Just as the sun pitched summarily over​

  the edge of the world we arrived a week​

  ago. In the afterglow the sunburnt guests​

  finished their drinks by the pool.

  That night we ate breadfruit, yams,​

  and flying fish in a dining room​

  with potted palms for walls. Beyond​

  the shoals a schooner, its rigging strung​

  with lights, passed by under moon and stars.

  A scrawny kitten mewed beneath our chairs.

  Letting go into sleep . . . the sound of crockery​

  being stacked in the kitchen, surf and wind.

  A small dog barked inconclusively.

  Next morning walking on the beach​

  I caught a whiff of marijuana mingled​

  with the reek of chicken coops, then​

  something like sterno, and fire.

  Morning glories ramped over a tumbledown house.

  Back at the hotel we settled in.

  Levon came every day, wearing his T-shirt​

  that looked like the front of a tux—​

  which I saw one day drying on a porch​

  down the beach—and his heart-shaped​

  sunglasses, pushed back on his leonine​

  head so I could see his eyes, which were kind.​

  Cigarettes—funny cigarettes—he’d be your man.

  Afternoons he surfed,​

  his beat-up board secured to his ankle​

  by a long strap. Perhaps that’s how​

  the long scar came to be on his thigh.

  The wind was up; the surf was loud and high.

  Now our taxi strains uphill, its doors​

  ajog, then rushes down the narrow lane.

  In the cut-over cane two egrets strut and peck.

  Good-bye Barbados—good-bye water, hiss​

  and thunder; scented winds; clattering palms;​

  stupefying sun and rum; good-bye turquoise,​

  pink, copen, lavender, black and red.

  Tonight another couple will sleep in our bed.

  The Blue Bowl

  Like primitives we buried the cat​

  with his bowl. Bare-handed​

  we scraped sand and gravel​

  back into the hole.

  They fell with a hiss​

  and thud on his side,​

  on his long red fur, the white feathers​

  between his toes, and his​

  long, not to say aquiline, nose.

  We stood and brushed each other off.​

  The
re are sorrows keener than these.

  Silent the rest of the day, we worked,​

  ate, stared, and slept. It stormed​

  all night; now it clears, and a robin​

  burbles from a dripping bush​

  like the neighbor who means well​

  but always says the wrong thing.

  The Letter

  Bad news arrives in her distinctive hand.​

  The cancer has returned, this time​

  to his brain. Surgery impossible,​

  treatments underway. Hair loss, bouts​

  of sleeplessness and agitation at night,​

  exhaustion during the day . . .

  I snap the blue leash onto the D-ring​

  of the dog’s collar, and we cross​

  Route 4, then cut through the hayfield​

  to the pond road, where I let him run​

  along with my morbidity.

  The trees have leafed out—only just—​

  and the air is misty with sap.

  So green, so brightly, richly succulent,​

  this arbor over the road . . .

  Sunlight penetrates in golden drops.

  We come to the place where a neighbor​

  is taking timber from his land.

  There’s a smell of lacerated earth​

  and pine. Hardwood smells different.

  His truck is gone.

  Now you can see well up the slope,​

  see ledges of rock and ferns breaking forth​

  among the stumps and cast-aside limbs​

  and branches.

  The place will heal itself in time, first​