On the Threshhold of Twilight

Here is the hour of musk-tender power

Drawing the shadow of dusk on the day

Here is the hour that unfolds like a flower

In petals of amber and soft silver-gray

Here is the taunting in warm-whispered wanting

For one precious hour of fair pasts to return

Here is the portal where time-tempered mortal

Recalls dim-lit gardens for which softly we yearn

Here is the meadow where memories echo

Bitter-sweet sonnet of sorrow and mirth

As twilight comes stealing, life’s hurt and its healing

Swells in the stillness that blankets the earth

Here is the hour as darkness creeps lower

When exile is sweeter than noon’s laughing clan

For darkness makes clearer and somehow draws nearer

The whisper of memories common to man

© Janet Martin