Yesterday Evening

Sometimes there is a certain atmosphere to the closing of a day that speaks more than of itself. It is a rolling up of many ends of days particularly those winter days of smoky sunsets, lights in distant windows, with mists that seem to rise like spirits from the fields. On such an evening I am recalled to some earlier life where the structures are more simple and the memories, once like shadows, are sharpened into silhouettes.

In the twilight silence
Of this winter's day
The evening fires
Send smoky spirals
Through the chilling air

The rise and cadence
Of the stepping notes
Of plainsong
Are tight and measured
In the cloistered close

The nunc dimittis
Said and done

Gaude Virgo gloriosa
Super omnes speciosa

Thus far my faltering
Steps have come.

JL March 6 12:45