*Be Still, an erasure poem by Drew Myron*

Wasn’t it a great weekend, full of sunshine and good times, friends and fun? Yes, for me also.

But then Sunday evening arrives and a sadness creeps in. Always something lonely about a Sunday night (or a Monday holiday that feels like a Sunday).

It’s not just me. Go ahead, google “Sunday sadness” and see the pages pile up.

Sunday sadness is so common it’s made the Urban Dictionary: “a feeling of fatigue, depression or anxiety felt on Sunday.”

The quasi-authority on modern life, Real Simple, backs this up: “Even after the best of weekends (or especially after the best of weekends), there’s a cloud that descends.”

This vague edgy-melancholic state is more than dread for the workweek ahead (I like my job! I love structure!). This is not depression, but more of an existential fugue, a spiritual restlessness, a distant cousin to malaise.

On Sunday nights, I find myself reading poems and writing long searching letters to faraway friends. I try to write my own poems but my thoughts are scattered, too loose to pin, too pinned to let loose.

Given that this day is widely set aside for spiritual nourishment, maybe this sadness is God giving a nudge. But instead of encouraged, I feel the familiar gnaw of church and faith: ache and sadness, relief and weight.

Late Meditation (excerpt)

Do you think His arms
are going to make
a cradle

for your head

so you can finally
fall asleep?

The yellow crocus just outside the front door is not a miracle of light

But pretty close
in its papery
stillness

The only color in the entire yard

We are trying
very hard

to be alone

— Michael Dickman
The End of the West