The Long Pause Between Day And Night

This poem appears in The History of Dying Stars. The artwork presented with the poem was specifically commissioned for the book and represents the artist's interpretation of the poem.

The Long Pause Between Day And Night
By Oscar S. Cisneros
They stretch longer and longer as day cedes to night. In late afternoons, when the sting of heat goes from balmy to cool, when white light burns to amber, they stretch, the shadows cast by trees, longer and longer as the last yawn of day and the first embrace of night. Here, in this place neither here nor there between one moment and another, the mind replays the conflicts and joys and ambivalence of the day. Small though it might seem, this transition is an opportunity to reflect. Morning is different, though the length of shadows is the same as darkness recedes before day. Morning brings a clear mind, the promise of things to come, but is hurried by the demands of an impatient day. And so I think of you on these late afternoons, when the shadows cast by trees grow longer and longer, when I have spent another day without you, and I wonder how many afternoons will pass before we can share the long pause between day and night.