Twilight's Dawn

Your love was spring rain
     Refreshing every acre 
In my thirsty heart.
     Gentle, warm, life-giving rain
     That made green grass dance to life.  

Your love was sunlight
     Streaming into hidden vales
Awakening flowers
     To bloom in your love’s clear light,
     Dressing the world in colors.  

You poured yourself out,
     Never counting labor’s cost;
You shone for others,
     Bringing joy to their tired hearts,
     Even to lone wanderers.  

You cleared out hemlock
     That had choked crops and killed cows;
You burned my heart’s brush,
     Not knowing that you emblazed 
     A vast field of tumbleweed.

Like Shane, you rode in,
     Cleaned up the whole wide valley,
Killing off bad men
     And rewarding the more just. 
     Like Shane, you rode off, wounded.

For you were bleeding,
     Gut shot while defending us;
“Come back, Shane,” he cried,
     As you rode past grave markers
     On your last lone mountain climb.

I was present there,
     And you were wounded for me.
Father to a child,
     And my spirit’s second birth.
     You, dawn of my twilight years.


—27 January 2020