Evening Sonata

As the long winds of evening come,
the dove purrs herself to sleep in the barn.
In fading light the hawk spreads her wings,
catching more wind, more wind.
Her breath takes her higher, a wider flight,
big as night, old as dreams.
Seems every night, thunder plays with wind on the horizon:
orange, yellow, surprising shapes!
In the long winds of evening,
whispery wands of dandelion seed hold just a little longer,
on the edge of their big drift.
The sun mixes gray and green with night 
on this edge of the earth.
A blue paler and paler, and a lustrous streak of white,
the mountain “sundown”.
A play of sound like Brahms, rhapsodic, contrapuntal,
the changing paths of wind.
Voices cross the hills every which way,
searching for their dreams,  already going deeper,
drifting off into night.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
July 16, 1995