Questions Before Dark

I’ve had many “This Is Summer” moments over the past week. One of them happened as I was paddling down a slowly meandering creek and another on my first dive into my favourite swimming hole.

I’d love to hear about your “This Is Summer” moments! Share yours on my Facebook Page.

How do you feel each night as you come to the end of your day?

This poem by Jeanne Lohmann entitled “Questions Before Dark” sets the tone for a time of gentle reflection to ease you into sleep.

Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?

“When the sky dies down”, reading those words brings such a sweet image to calm you down in preparation for sleep.

“Has this day changed you?” No doubt is has in some small or profound way.

“Are the corners sharper or more rounded off?” What a good question! To follow up with that “What could you do right now to smooth some of those corners or learn something important from the sharpness?

“Bewilderment that invites the possible”, ahhh, it frees me so to imagine that bewilderment could invite the possible.

“Did you live with death?” Yes, I lived (if only for a few moments) with the richness that knowing I’m going to die some day brings.

One of my favourite lines is “What did you learn from things you dropped and picked up and dropped again?” I don’t know exactly what that means to me yet but I know it is important so I will live with the question and see if it eventually leads to an answer.

They say that poems were the original magic. I think there’s some truth to that.

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