Let Evening Come: Poems
Kenyon ( The Boat of Quiet Hours ) portrays with meticulous detail the healing, regenerative force of nature in the cycles of human emotion and experience. Her understated, deceptively simple poems celebrate the pleasures of domestic, rural life--waking, walking the dog, wash day are here occasions for meditations on the natural world and the joys of ordinary existence: "All afternoon I lifted oak leaves / from the flowerbeds and greeted / like friends the green-white crowns / of perennials. . . . How I hated to come in! . . . " But underlying these observations is a subtle tension masterfully created by Kenyon's exacting language and alternating images of light and ever-encroaching darkness: "The sun drops low over the pond. / Long shadows move out from the stones, / and a chill rises from the moss. . . . " Her vision is ultimately one of faith and acceptance, as in the title poem, where she asserts, "God does not leave us / comfortless, so let evening come." While one of the poet's greatest strengths is her unadorned, prosaic speech, the language sometimes falls flat, marring an otherwise cogent and moving collection.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.