The Coming of Light by Mark Strand
The Coming of Light
by Mark Strand
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
Maybe because I’ve turned 50 and recently come out of a long relationship feeling wholehearted and believing in love, and this sense of the availability of grace late in life feels poignant. Mark Strand wrote this in his early forties, in The Late Hour. So many of the love stories we have in our culture and society are for the young. Grace still arrives at any place in time without warning, even in the midst of everything that is hard. I firmly believe that. The reversal of “tomorrow’s dust is already breath” reminds me that I am alive, I am yet breathing, and each breath is just exactly what I have.
