“If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant.”

“Let the light of late afternoonshine through chinks in the barn, movingup the bales as the sun moves down.Let the cricket take up chafingas a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come.Let dew collect on the hoe abandonedin long grass. Let the stars appearand the moon disclose her silver horn.Let the fox go back to its sandy den.Let the wind die down. Let the shedgo black inside. Let evening come.To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come.Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.”

“Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come. ”

“To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come.Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.”

“We Let the Boat DriftI set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine.The grass in the field would make a second crop if early autumn rains hadn't washed the goodness out. After the night's hard frost it makes a brittle rustling as I walk.The water is utterly still. Here and therea black twig sticks up. It's five years today, and even now I can't accept what cancer did to him -- not death so much as the annihilation of the whole man, sense by sense, thought by thought, hope by hope.Once we talked about the life to come. I took the Bible from the nightstand and offered John 14: "I go to prepare a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said. "But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" And he wept.My neighbor honks and waves driving by. She counsels troubled students; keeps bees; her goats follow her to the mailbox.Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddlesrested across our laps; glittering dropsfell randomly from their tips. The lightaround us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant-let us get quite close before it dove, coming upafter a long time, and well away from humankind”

“OtherwiseI got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love.At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.”

“All day the blanket snapped and swelledon the line, roused by a hot spring wind....From there it witnessed the first sparrow,early flies lifting their sticky feet,and a green haze on the south-sloping hills.Clouds rose over the mountain....At duskI took the blanket in, and we slept,restless, under its fragrant weight. ”