L’heure Bleue – The Time of Evening
by Robert René Galván
The sun has set, but night has not yet fallen. It’s the suspended hour…The hour when one finally finds oneself in renewed harmony with the world and the light…The night has not yet found its star.
~Jacques Guerlain
As the world folds into shadow,
A grey tapestry descends:
The coyote’s lament from the wild place
Across the creek and the fading chorale
Of the late train awaken crepuscular birds
Who inhabit the rift like rare gods.
Abuelo sits in the cleft of a mesquite,
His rolled tobacco flickering
With the fireflies as a dim lantern
Receives the adoration of moths;
A cat’s eyes glow green
In the gloaming light
And a cloud of mosquitos
Devoured by a flurry of bats.
The outhouse door moans open
And the boy treads quietly
On the moonlit stepping stones,
Through the corn and calabacitas,
Under the windmill as it measures
The October wind;
Pupils widen like black holes,
Ingest the night spirits,
And he cannot yet imagine
A world beyond these stars,
Or that he will someday
Live in a place where it’s never dark.
Robert René Galván, born in San Antonio, resides in New York City where he works as a professional musician and poet. His last collection of poems is Meteors (Lux Nova Press). His poetry is published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Hawaii Review and UU World.
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