Did you think to thank the evening?
I am the evening,
I have a soul, old and real,
A being – an essence from another age –
The flowering sage,
Spilling gold,
The half-moon watching,
The glimmering petals of time
That bloom
Between the echoes
Of lost places,
The ravens recounting
Tales untold
Of yesteryear,
The wheel
Running on and on,
While the tadpole curls up into sleep.
Did you thank the One
Who made the evening?
Or did you assume that all came together
Just entirely by chance?
A lovely accident
With no intent?
Nothing to see,
An idle dance?
Yet the evening is a petal
On the deepening rose of time
By the haunting cliff, steep,
Blown in the owl-awakened wind,
Gently, as the clouds
Fold up into stars
And the clear sky sings
Her song with crowds
Of hummingbirds that chime,
Recalling the embers
Of lilting Septembers
From far, far away,
Traces of rain remembered,
The wall of China
Winds around the rolling hills,
From lands long ago
In the swirling snow.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Written September 14, 2021