A bank of purple cloud presses the sunset
down, down into fire and golden light.
Up from the land rises Darkness.
At the horizon there is a little string
of highway lights, commercial buildings
marking their place against the oncoming night
But here in the overlook I am encompassed by it.
The color of the bee balm standing straight
along the mowed edge of the meadow
fades to lavender gray and then to
no color I can see. The shapes of plants
and a single tree hold their own
against the burning sky. Lightning bugs
appear. Their signaling occurs in the margins of my view:
I turn to them and they are gone, to wink again
in another place.
I am sending out my signal, too,
into the universe like they are,
to a face I only imagine, one
I hope into existence, who will see and love
my light, little though it is,
tentative and timid in the dusk,
but trusting the power of the darkness
to let it shine.
down, down into fire and golden light.
Up from the land rises Darkness.
At the horizon there is a little string
of highway lights, commercial buildings
marking their place against the oncoming night
But here in the overlook I am encompassed by it.
The color of the bee balm standing straight
along the mowed edge of the meadow
fades to lavender gray and then to
no color I can see. The shapes of plants
and a single tree hold their own
against the burning sky. Lightning bugs
appear. Their signaling occurs in the margins of my view:
I turn to them and they are gone, to wink again
in another place.
I am sending out my signal, too,
into the universe like they are,
to a face I only imagine, one
I hope into existence, who will see and love
my light, little though it is,
tentative and timid in the dusk,
but trusting the power of the darkness
to let it shine.
Jane Cook Barnes lives and teaches in Naperville, Illinois (USA), where the midwestern landscape and the
lives of her family give energy to her poetry.
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