It comes around the same time every evening
When the afternoon is barely done with leaving
A long and narrow shape along the wall
The last of the light before the fall
Of evening over everything outside
A shape that moves and changes with the tide
Of the sun that's dropping somewhere past the row
Of buildings that surround the world I know
The last bit of sunlight on the wall
The long and golden moving of the fall
Of afternoon into the evening's start
A brief and ordinary kind of art
The last bit of sunlight, moving slow
Across the surface of the wall I know
By the time I pour my evening tea
The light is almost gone and leaving me
I've started noticing it more this year
The way it passes and the way it nears
The floor before it's gone completely through
The room and all the color that it drew
Briefly on the ordinary surfaces
The white of walls and all their purposes
Repainted for a moment into gold
Something warm that I would rather hold
The last bit of sunlight on the wall
The long and golden moving of the fall
Of afternoon into the evening's start
A brief and ordinary kind of art
The last bit of sunlight, moving slow
Across the surface of the wall I know
By the time I pour my evening tea
The light is almost gone and leaving me
There are people who photograph this light
And I understand the reason and the right
Of wanting to preserve the feeling there
But I've been trying just to let it where
It is, to be the person in the room
While the light is doing what it does through
The window and the air and leave it free
To move and go without a memory
It's gone before I quite decide to move
Toward the window or the evening groove
Of dinner and the regular routine
The light was there and now the wall is clean
Of everything it briefly was at four
Or five, depending on the season's floor
And I am left here in the ordinary room
Grateful for the light before the room
The last bit of sunlight on the wall
The long and golden moving of the fall
Of afternoon into the evening's start
A brief and ordinary kind of art
The last bit of sunlight, moving slow
Across the surface of the wall I know
By the time I pour my evening tea
The light is almost gone and leaving me
Tomorrow it will do the same, I know
The last bit of light and then let go
The same wall and the same long gold
The same and never quite the same to hold
