Evensong

Again the thrush affirms both dusk and dawn

- Jane Kenyon

When in a cold dusk like this,

with a blue-black sky

seeping into place

and the moon hanging

monotone on the horizon,

we are left

silenced, abandoned by

this oblique winter.

Know that soon

in some pine barren

or woodland sanctuary

it will be

the song of the hermit thrush -

its clear spiraling hymn,

haunting

liquid and reedy -

that emerges, dissolves

daylight's edges, and

releases dusk

into the grace of night.

Know that, too,

in this tender season

we will be transformed.

Andrea Vlahakis

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society