The Land of In-Between



Claude Monet, Au Parc Monceau

After an Early Supper with Friends
June 4, 2011

This is the time when shadows start to blend; the
day is not quite ended, nor has evening quite
begun. There is a kind of hush — no chorus
sounds; each noise is singular: the scrape of
Papa’s chair, a pair of doves emboldened to
converse, the bleating of a lamb. This moment
seems to stretch, the earth is sluggish in its
spinning. Is the sun reluctant to surrender at the
hour appointed? Is our star just now

Claude Monet, Evening at Argenteuil

undisciplined and truculent?

Something holds its breath; we hardly notice even
as we cease activity and rest upon a hammock
strung between the first peal and the last one of
the village clock; and then we slide upon a great
collective sigh that’s part contentment, part regret
at being not allowed to stay here in this mystic
land of in-between, this fissure in the continuity of
day and evening