Donald Jeffrey Hayes imagines night not as sudden darkness but as a soft, almost visible substance—purple flakes of snow that settle gently over the world. The speaker watches evening fall over rooftops, trees, grass, and flowers, and knows it will eventually drift indoors too. That last thought, “in an hour,” adds a quiet sense of waiting, as if the speaker is sitting near a window, unhurried and attentive. There is no fear or loneliness here. Instead, the slow approach of darkness feels calm, inevitable, and even beautiful. The unusual image of purple snow gives the scene a dreamlike strangeness, as if twilight has its own color and texture. The poem lingers in that pause between day and full dark, and the speaker seems content to simply observe. The overall mood is peaceful and meditative: a person paying close attention to a small, everyday transformation and finding it lovely rather than threatening.
Night — Summary
Night like purple flakes of snow Falls with ease Catching on the roofs of houses In the tops of trees Down upon the distant grass And the distant flower It will drift into this room In an hour....