Between Brattleboro and Bellows Falls
Darkness rose as day behind the trees
Dwindled, although the occasional metal roof,
Mimicking a river or a lake,
Might briefly lob back light
Until the train sped on
And the specious glow was lost.
We move past trees
And then an open field, then trees again.
And day when we emerge
Is that much closer to ending:
Light has gone down a notch.
Change works like that.
The pace of decline seems vanishingly slow,
But look up: the sky's darker. Gazing blankly
Into the twilit window, I snare a fragment
Of conversation floating back from when
We still had conversations,
Or I thought we did. But the next day
It was for you as if that conversation
Had never happened. I looked up
And saw the sky had changed.
– Rachel Hadas
from the Times Literary Supplement