I first learned this as a Spanish word although the English is quite similar. It happened in a poem that wasn’t just about the edge of day, but also about the edge of a relationship. It happened in a poem being written by two poets. It became the title of the poem. Those tricky poets, using one thing to represent another.
Songwriters often collaborate, one the music, the other the lyrics – or sometimes they jam it out, feel their way into and through the music, reach into the zone – start out with one thing, come back with another. Put a whole together out of a certain combination of roughly twelve notes. Sometimes, when the notes are right, the words just flow.
It’s not so easy with poets – there is no instrument to take the burden off of the words, to fill the silences before the right rhythm, or the perfect hook, or a melody as sweet and raw as sugarcane take over and make the thing complete. They did their best.
This couple in the poem, see, they were lost. The sun was hovering just above the horizon. They were in Mexico. So were the poets. Crepuscalario. They were trying everything to suspend the sun in the sky, To keep it from descending into twilight. Crepuscalario. The shouting had not stopped the sun from descending. The couple had children. Using them as weapons had not stopped the sun from descending. Sleeping with the neighbor or the guy at work had not stopped it, going to the gym to feel attractive again had not stopped it, talking it out quietly in a safe and warm space had not stopped the sun from descending. Crepuscalario.
There are three levels of twilight: civil twilight, nautical twilight and astronomical twilight – all measured by how many degrees below the horizon the sun has passed. The couple passed through all three, and night still came. The poets left Mexico, it was just a day trip. The poem survived, I have it somewhere. I survived to walk the earth on this glorious night. The other poet, Teresa Anderson, did not. Breast cancer came at the height of her teaching career. Crepuscalario. In my mind, I still speak her name with the long Spanish ‘a’ as the middle vowel, even though she was a white peckerwood from Oklahoma, just like me