I Like the Dusk Best of All

I like the dusk best of all.

Each time it arrives,

I feel like it sneaks up on me

and

covers me in the mysterious

layer of the day.

I surrender instantly, allowing it to hold me fully.

We slow dance, the dusk and I, for thirteen minutes and eight seconds,

I forget all about the dawn,

the day

and

the night.

Now is just for us.

Now is for

this slight dimming of the lights,

this warm wind,

this quiet change.

I know this dusk, this dusk,

is only temporary,

as I know everything, everything

is only temporary.

It doesn’t make me love it any less.

(Maybe it makes me love it more.)

This moody, not-quite-night-time

pulls me in closely with its light dewiness

and in its faraway smell of someone’s supper in the air.

I am all at once far, far away, wrapped up in a curious, distant cloud

and I am

close,

close here,

I am home.

Soon darkness will declare its victory over you and that darkness will last much longer than thirteen minutes and eight seconds.

It will go on,

and on,

and on,

for several hours…

leaving dusk —

in the dust.

And I will forget all about this time we shared as my eyes begin to adjust to the night.

I will forget until the next time you sneak up on me and I am reminded…

I like the dusk best of all.

(excerpt from my upcoming young adult novel, Just a Girl in the Whirl.)