Day 8: Dusk
a poem a day in the month of may
Hello friends,
There’s a reason I didn’t pair today’s word with dawn when I shared it earlier in the month. I wanted you to have separation between these words, because so often we automatically connect dawn and dusk—of course we do!
But I want us to focus specifically on dusk.
Dusk is partial darkness, shade, gloom, the liminal space between day and night, the darkest part of twilight.
Dusk is a noun and a verb.
In Middle English it’s dosk, an alteration of Old English dox; akin to Latin fuscus dark brown, Old English dunn dun, dūst dust.
In Swedish duska means "be misty," Latin fuscus "dark," Sanskrit dhusarah "dust-colored;" also compare Old English dosan "chestnut-brown."
So we think of dusk as a liminal space of darkening, a dusting across the landscape before us.
Wow, right?
As I was looking up these images I also thought of this song by Leif Vollebek that I think you’ll love. It’s a cover of the Eagles “Take It to the Limit” and I think that dusk is just that—taking us to the limits of the day as we turn to the dusty, liminal darkness.
In this almost-but-not-quite, I gather myself along the shore and wait for the dusty darkness to cover and cloak me. Once I am covered by that blanket of tender quieting, I’ll listen as the waves lap against the shore of My Being. I have arrived at the limit of the twilit evening, and now I gently sway into this night-portal, disintegrating into the precious air that lulled me here in the first place.
it is said
this is when the weavers arrive,
you will know them by
their hunting songs.
among the nightshades and the wolf grass,
wings and jaws and tongues are preying
upon dark willing blooms.
behind the curtain I lift my praying hands
to find them sewn into the softness
of falling night, a symphony of form and story
now seamlessly embroidered
by winged needle
into a landscape of dreaming earth.
How kind of you, dear day,
Not to cast all light away
And slam me into darkness.
This easing, this segue, reveals
That every departure is an arrival,
And every loss a gain.
Like milk poured into
black coffee,
The point of entry
Always becomes a swirl
And both darkness and light
Are contained within each other.
All of my life is dusk,
the pinnacle of nothing.
Every holding on
Is preceded and followed
By a letting go.
And so, go
“Gentle into that good night.”