Afternoon Light

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --

And that's as much as you're going to get from me of that famous Emily Dickinson poem.  As far as I'm concerned, she descends into a darkness that sounds and feels pretty depressing.  And I have never been depressed by afternoon light.

These days, in early March, there is daylight until about 6:00 p.m.  And in less than a week, we will move our clocks ahead and greet Daylight Savings Time, extending our daylight hours into after-dinner territory.  I know that DST is controversial, but I am not going to take a position on it.  While part of me thinks it's kind of dumb to mess with the clocks, I will also admit to getting a bit giddy at what we might perceive as "longer days."  I love that Native American response to DST:  Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.

But no matter what the clock says, there is still that certain slant of light in late afternoon.  For me, it is a contemplative time, a time of slowing down and reflecting on what came before.  It quietly asks for peace, suggests the possibility of pensive solitude.

The sun edges beyond our kitchen window, 
swirling like a Van Gogh sunburst into a late afternoon nap.

That wasn't Emily, that was me.  A piece of a poem I wrote many years ago, trying to articulate what that light evokes for me.  Of course, I failed.  I would not expect that I could put it into words, because I think what that light does for me is wordless, ethereal, but also a kind of promise.  It calms and invigorates me at the same time.  It is, indeed, a certain slant.

And I am in love with it, this afternoon and every afternoon to come.