The Blue Hour, by Sonia Gernes

Untitled, by L. Clarence Ball (USA, 1858-1915). Painting's date unknown.

The Blue Hour                                                         

If sometimes I am silent
when the sun has moved from the hill,
and the breeze cools my skin
like a swiftly drawn breath,
it is as though the air
has formed a frame around me
and I am going back--
I am always going back--
to the farm,  to the lonesome houses
clumped around the creamery,
to  those winter nights
when I walked home from chores,
and darkness did not descend, but
coalesced around me, a convergence
of longing, youth and light.

In those winter twilights,
the future aching within me,
every post and tree was honed
into itself, and I’d look up
to find a sapphire
beginning to enclose me,
and for one moment of merging,
I would step into the crystal.

Sonia Gernes

Sonia Gernes taught Creative Writing and American Literature at the University of Notre Dame for thirty years and is now happily retired.  She has published one novel and five books of poetry.