Day is Done: Darkness falls from
Wings of Night, as a Feather wafts
Down, from the Eagle, in its Flight²
The Hours have passed with stealthy
Flight, we Needs must part: Good Night,
Good Night – we part in hope of days as
Bright as this gone by: Good Night, Good Night³
Your whole Day is barely the Start of my Sunset⁴
Day longs for Evening – Day Knows, in spite of
Everything, Evening can’t fail: Ancient, Luminous⁵
Black Milk of Daybreak – we Drink at Evening⁶
If you look East, at Sunset, you can see Night
Rising, not Falling: Darkness Lifting into the
Sky, up from the horizon – like a Black Sun⁷
Night Hurls Darkness, Love’s Shade, over
Its Enemy: the Day – and makes the world
Such Blind & Shapeless Thing as ‘twas
Before Light did from Darkness spring⁸
‘Tis a Cruel Fate, if the Night is too
Late to Undo the work of the Morn⁹
Snap the Golden Chain – step
Boldly towards the Sunset!¹⁰
¹ Subha Sunder, Dragon Girl
² Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day is Done
³ Joanna Baillie, Good-Night
⁴ Fatamah Asghar, Pluto Shits on the Universe
⁵ Denise Levertov, The Day Longs for the Evening
⁶ Paul Celan tr. John Felstiner, Death Fugue
⁷ Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
⁸ Jasper Mayne, Time
⁹ Margaret E. Sangster, Our Own
¹⁰ Gasan tr. Lucian Stark & Takashi Ikemoto, Invaluable Is the Soto Way