Evensong

“Autumn Evening” by Letitia Smith-Burnett

 

dovecotes emit oblique octaves
as corn-yellow sun settles down
among lavender raiment of sky
plaintive lyrics of homing at close
of the wearying day carried high
inside soughs of domestic retreat
over pole-barns and stables where
livestock relax into reverence and
farmhouse beds hunger for prayers
every day is a blessing of labors to
gratify yearnings of body and soul
what the minor key birdsong of
psalms understands even better
than voices of husbands and wives
caught up worrying work yet undone