Arna Bontemps’s “Length of Moon” is about the quiet end of a time that once felt full—the last golden hour ticking away, the light fading out of a flower, and a shorter stretch of moonlight reaching only briefly across the sea and dunes. The speaker seems caught between holding on and letting go, aware that some things will be forgotten and others probably should be. There is no anger in this, just a calm, slightly sad acceptance that everything familiar eventually fails: stone crumbles, roses fade. In the stillness afterward, two people might linger at a picket gate, but the real distance has already grown inside them. The mood is twilit and hushed, full of gentle resignation—less about dramatic loss than about the soft ache of having less to say.
Length of Moon — Summary
Then the golden hour Will tick its last And the flame will go down in the flower.
A briefer length of moon Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune.
Then we may think of this, yet There will be something forgotten And something we should forget.
It will be like all things we know: The stone will fail; a rose is sure to go.
It will be quiet then and we may stay As long at the picket gate But there will be less to say.