Evening Hope

Friday, April 1, 2022

Émile-Antoine Bayard – Jules Vernes “Around the Moon” (1870)

---

INVOCATION

Spirit, speak softly. 

---

EPIPHANY

The Sun takes her leave.
The clouds rise and follow and the Moon glides in, 
spreading a blanket of darkness and quiet and space to rest.
The stars speak in hushed whispers and the galaxies exhale and exhale and exhale.

What more hope do we need? 

---

EVENSONG

Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon 

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving   
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   
as a woman takes up her needles   
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   
Let the wind die down. Let the shed   
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   
in the oats, to air in the lung   
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   
be afraid. God does not leave us   
comfortless, so let evening come.

---

BENEDICTION

Good night, dear souls. May your sleep be a blessing.