Evening Song

--to Harriet Koch

Once we were young,
The day seemed bright and endless.
Our paths lay wide and firm across the meadow,
Rising toward the heights.
Our dreams were all untarnished, unfulfilled.
We were new; the world seemed newer still.

Over in the west, we pause to see the reddening sun
Beyond the breeze-blown flutter of the cottonwoods.
We can say, “This day was good,
This day we thought would never end.”
We can say, as we hear the last bird sing
Its evening song,
“It won’t be long, this light;
It won’t be long this wrinkled skin,
These anxious thoughts,
This dying pain.
It won’t be long.”

We are apart from the restless days,
The rushing about,
The press of time.
Our time has but a few more grains to drop,
As the sun has but few degrees to drop.
We move on toward the night.

As a boy, I dreamed a dream.
There was a garden
With a fountain.
I sat with my best friend.
We talked, and every word was full,
Nourishing like bread.
We sang sweet songs our mothers taught us.
We watched the colored pebbles
In the pool.
We held each other’s hand
And walked away--
Out through garden gate,
Out into the morning's cool.

Copyright 2006 by M. David Orr