Edward Dixon Garner - Sundown

This past week, while waiting for my son to finish his cello lesson, I visited a favorite used bookstore, The Eagle Eye, and purchased a book of poems, For All the Lost and Lonely by Edward Dixon Garner, published in 1965. I don't recognize the author and can't find anything on the web about him. According to the dust jacket, he was a journalist, poet and writer in North Carolina.

The first poem in this collection, particularly the last four lines, is haunting.

Sundown

Sundown arrives and softly through the hills,
Swiftly and silently the darkness sweeps.
The fields are taken, and the valley fills
With night and the strange shadows that it keeps.
A light is on far down the valley now,
And on the hill above it to the right
Another one appears, a team to plow
Furrows for dreams to rise from in the night.
Looking once more, but not finding the sought,
I close the door, and to my study turning,
I find a deeper darkness in the thought
Of lights that were, but are no longer burning
For all the lost and lonely - for all men
Who look for lights that will not shine again.