The Blue Hour

August 17, 2021

It is what some call the “blue hour,”

or what our mother called “teatime” –

the transitory time just after sunset

that signals a pause on the day,

when light grows muted,

without shadow or demand,

and we exchange our rootbound selves

for the expansive half-light,

wedding transparency with one flesh –

Task and the emotional drawdown

of others fall away during the

elongated minutes that never last

quite long enough, and peace settles lightly

over our shoulders as we blend

with other outlines into the landscape —

before the streetlamps slowly come up

and we are bound over to darkness

and the cocoon of night.