Thoughts on “February Twilight”

I stood beside a hill
     Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
     From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
     That saw what I could see—
I stood and watched the evening star
     As long as it watched me.

One century ago, “February Twilight” was first published in Poetry Magazine in 1924. Teasdale was already an accomplished poet, having been the first person ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. This poem lives in the Welcome House at Headwaters where it greets families arriving for Laity Lodge Family Camp or campers arriving for Foundation Camp.

Although we rarely see “new-laid snow” in the Frio Canyon, many visitors have stood in awe of the natural world during a retreat or camp, much as Teasdale describes in the second stanza. If we stand and watch long enough, we may even experience the uncanny sense of the natural world—and the Creator of the natural world—watching us in return.