Decline

[rejectomorph]

Stingy clouds that merely dripped now and then to speckle the pavement cloaked the year's last Sunday. Though the day was gray, the back lawn is green again, thanks to recent rain and snow. It has exchanged colors with the trumpet vine, now brown, which tops the sagging fence. No shards of light reached the bare oaks or shaggy ponderosas all afternoon, but a momentary flaring at their tops came with evening, when the descending sun briefly escaped the sky's gray cap. The waxing moon had no such luck, and its skinny rind never penetrated the clouds. Now the rumpled sky is starless, and the cold air is still. Winter hangs around doing nothing. We have that in common.



Sunday Verse

258

–Emily Dickinson


There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

>Now the rumpled sky is starless, and the cold air is still.

nice line.

the poem's first stanza became part of my emotional makeup many years ago. i've felt that oppressive hush more days than i'd want to count (and not only in winter). the name of this icon is "sunlight slants."