The Blue Hour, by Barbara Lydecker Crane

Summer Evening at Skagen Beach–the Artist and his Wife, by Peder Severin Krøyer (Denmark) 1899

The Blue Hour
         
At dusk the air would lure us out to stroll
the village beach, where sky and sea would mesh,
softly stitched into a fleeting whole.
The wholeness that was ours, of hearts and flesh, 
was temporary, too. At times my mind
would send me to the hospital. Unhinged 
or well, I found that friends and art would bind
my life to hope. My mental state infringed
on my much younger, lovely wife; she traveled
on her own, found another man,
and asked for a divorce. My world unraveled
even further when my sight began
to dim. Until I could no longer see,
I painted with what light was left in me.
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Barbara Lydecker Crane
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Barbara Lydecker Crane, a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist in 2017 and  2019, has received two Pushcart nominations and several awards for her sonnets. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Alabama Literary Review, Ekphrastic Review, First Things, Light, Measure, Montreal Review, Think, Writer’s Almanac, and many others.  She has published three chapbooks: Zero Gravitas, Alphabetricks, and BackWords Logic. Her book of sonnets about artists and portrait paintings, entitled You Will Remember Me, will be published by Able Muse Press. 
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