“We would lie down in quiet thankfulness,
and commit the folded hours to thee.”*

What hope for the long hours of winter eventide?
The moon’s echo of sun to come most mornings,

heaven’s harmony of light and darkness,
earth, fire, and water, the whorls in wood,

balance sufficient for a poet who wakes restless
to slip from the covers, beside his wife,

step over the sleeping Aussie dog,
shepherd permitting no threat

to her human charges, another winter
early to bed, then 4:00 a.m. when the poet’s

dreams and visions^# wrench him awake
to brew the coffee and break off a square

of dark chocolate, let Lucy out to double check
for backyard demons and mark the hour,

then back inside for her pumpkin-flavored
treat before bedding down in the Study

beside the poet, quiet, filled with words^@
(and coffee and dark chocolate)

penciled on the pages of a legal pad, blessings
and forgiveness, staying in the lines,

his path of penitence and preparation,
prayer walk toward the morning’s light.

Notes:

* “At Eventide,” from Prayers for Private Devotions in War-Time, first gathered in 1942 by Dean Willard L. Sperry, Harvard’s then Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Preacher to the University, and, in this the Third Edition, 2003, by Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church, p. 8.

# Job 33: 15 (The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday, 1966)

@ Job 32: 18 (The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday, 1966)