Before Dusk...

Before dusk seeps across earth’s bay

And the taper that lights Today

Is snuffed; the bud of morning’s hour

Bloomed and stripped of its fleeting flow’r

…before the path that lies before

Our eyes and feet to twilight’s shore

Dips, then slips from our touch because

What is soon becomes what once was

…before we cannot turn in vain

To wish its What Was back again

God, help us now to recognize

The gift from You that lights the skies

Then, when dusk sweeps this day to naught

And fills the still of night with thought

We will not tarry at its shore

To wish the After to Before

 © Janet Martin