The sky bleeds crimson at the edge of day,
a soft surrender to the night’s quiet arms.
We sit on the porch, my wife and I,
tea cooling between our fingers
as silence wraps us like a shared shawl.
Once, I feared twilight.
Thought endings were failures,
fading was forgetting.
But I’ve come to know
the wisdom of the westward sun—
how letting go is a sacred rite,
how the dark births stars
and morning waits behind the hills.
I lean into her shoulder,
older now, but more alive,
carried not by the fire of noon
but by the calm that follows.
We are not what we once were,
but everything we need to be.
© Susie Stiles-Wolf