Twilight
By Jane E. Olive
Artwork by Jane E. Olive. Twilight, Oil painting, 20” x 24”
There is a softness in the twilight.
Not the rude brilliance of sunlight
So piercing you cannot
Face it as you drive.
There is an easing off the day’s effort,
A knowing that plans left undone
Wait for another day.
Even as twilight gentles desert lands
Scared by violent cloudbursts
Washing away tons of earth,
So also twilight may force
Us to face approaching
Night’s fears, the
Scars upon our hearts
Remaining from our own
Raging sorrows, bodily pains,
Mistakes, transgressions;
The anomalies in our lives.
Now, here in life’s gentle twilight,
I find a relaxing of the
Rude brilliance of ambition.
I sense a certain peace in this passage
When pain is not too piercing,
When mistakes and foolish remarks
Seem softened by perspective.
When a knowing that even as
Another day may bring pain
And yet more errors,
It may also allow completion of
One more hope or dream
Until there is no other
Day, or night, for me.
I understand twilight.
While driving along the Northshore Road, I photographed this view of desert in twilight. Even as I studied the photograph, there was a strange whiteness in the distance. It looked like a cloud or possibly fog on the surface, but that made no sense in the midst of our arid land. I thought it might be an outcropping of gypsum, but that would have been covered with brush and desert pavement. Today I think it probably was steam coming from the Reid Gardner Power Plant in Moapa, Nevada. A misinterpretation. As I tried to be true to the photo, the whiteness expanded on the canvas.
Still, I love this painting; it presents a bold illustration of erosion due to water in a desert land where you would never imagine there could be such a powerful movement of water. At the same time, its gentleness holds even more meaning to me now, 30 years after I painted it, as I live out my own twilight time. Is old age a form of erosion too? Just asking…
. . . . . .
The poem and painting, by Jane Ellsworth Olive, are each titled Twilight and, along with the commentary, are taken from the book, Las Vegas: the Meadows of the Mohave Desert as remembered in prose, poetry, and paintings.
Jane Ellsworth Olive lived in Clark County, Nevada, for over seven decades. A retired educator from Las Vegas, Jane Ellsworth Olive has always possessed a great passion for learning and sharing, one that includes a love of nature, music, the arts, literature, history, politics, religious studies, archaeology, and anthropology. In 2020 she recorded her love of the area’s natural beauty in her book, Las Vegas: the Meadows of the Mojave Desert as remembered in her paintings, poems, and prose. This book was published in 2020, and the plates as well as the text are ©Jane E. Olive. Consulting and printing were by DPI Print.
Photo courtesy of Jane E. Olive.