It is quiet here, the heat of a summer day is gone.
The first call of the whippoorwill sings above
the stillness of the oncoming night.
The orchard behind me builds a fragile wall
to isolate me from my world.
The fence in my foreground helps to frame
my special vision of a splendid sky!
The sun sets, and hazy clouds reflect the reds
and yellows of the descending orb.
In the west the brilliance is dazzling!
–a glistening curtain of immense proportions.
–reaching out to far corners of the twilight.
And in the distance the dim cirrus takes on
delicate pinks and fragile lavenders.
The bands of color reach far above my head,
to the right, to the left.
A cicada hums its monody to the edge of the day.
With cattle lowing to caress the coming night.
What majesty, a special moment in time!
My utopian mountain top!
(1993)
(revised in 2001 for Iowa Poetry Association)