The Time of the Slanted Light

It is the time of slanted light,
the time of night-songs,
when the shadowed ferns bow
to the stillness
rising from the soil.
And all around
is the smell of sun leaving grass,
the treetops turning to rust,
the sky running thin,
and there is Venus
surfacing above the hill,
and Queen Anne’s lace
tucked within the vines,
all of us
watching the pink stripe,
the orange bleeding back to blue,
this one small moment,
the last blink of sky
as it pulls away.