Let Evening Come (Jane Kenyon) and When I Am Asked (Lisel Mueller)

Once again, I have taken too long to return to my blog, but here goes.  I learned very recently about the death of a dear college friend's husband. My friend had been keeping a blog about her family's journey through cancer's diagnosis, treatments, and weights since April, and I went back and read much of her writings.   In addition to the great sadness she and her family were feeling, there was something else vividly reflected in these writings.  I believe I would have known who the writer was even if the names had been removed, even if I hadn't talked to this person in many, many years. I remember meeting her in college and wondering if she could truly be as upbeat, energetic, and fun as she sounded.  I learned over the 4 years of her depths as well.  Her writing sings such a beautiful song of praise-- to John,  to her teenage children,  to their lives together, to dear friends, to life. It is truly remarkable.  I am awed and inspired and deeply saddened, but I am also full of hope for them.  I think a  strong marriage and a close family takes work and nurture and love and more work; but on the flip side, they are rare jewels;  things of great beauty and strength.  It is so clear in my friend's writing that she had a remarkable marriage, and that she has a family that loves each other fiercely and will support and comfort each other and hold John's memory close.  I have been searching around for some pieces that might lend some solace.  Here are a few that move me.

Let Evening Come (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. When I Am Asked (Lisel Mueller) When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming. I sat on a gray stone bench  in a lovingly planted garden, but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and the roses curved inward. Nothing was black or broken and not a leaf fell and the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays. I sat on a gray stone bench ringed with the ingenue faces of pink and white inpatiens and placed my grief in the mouth of language, the only thing that would grieve with me.