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Tag: morning

Published April 11, 2006

This Morning’s Song

The song I sing this morning is not new.
In fact, its birth predates even my own;
yet in between the phrases, now and then,
it’s me, and not the tune, that you’ll hear groan.

Why is this melody upon my lips
instead of some fresh fragment from the charts,
designed from sentimental, worn cliches
to motivate me and my shopping cart?

Because it has survived, the same as I,
despite the efforts of a younger set
who think of history as just passe,
and find their greatest talent, to forget.

The song I sing this morning, I once sang
as a young boy who’d just begun to dream
that this old world was more than it appeared,
and started peeking in between the seams.

What song will you be singing when we meet?
I hope it’s one where I can sing along;
I’ll share mine with you, if you’d care to try:
in harmony, it’s twice as loud and strong.

11 APR 2006

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Published October 14, 2005

A Different Sunrise: an alba

What light may break through the scrub trees
that line the well-groomed yard at dawn
is thin and pale, its weight degrees
less than it when it lingers on

the lower depths, the southern end,
below the Orleans waterline;
there it hangs and drips with fat
and heavy water in the pines

and live oaks. Yet it brings the day
on the same time clock. Newton claimed
that mass does not affect the way
a thing responds; its strength is tamed

by gravity, that evens out
the superficial and the deep.
I, though, with Einstein, have my doubts,
while watching as new sunsets creep,

some like a lion, others meek,
with peacock’s plumes, or subtle shades;
some like a corpse, that dares not speak;
a few like boisterous parades.

What insights in an hour’s time
the rare observer gains, are lost
once that same sun completes its climb
and burns away both death, and frost.

14 OCT 2005

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Published May 23, 2005

Whence the morning comes

All brave words pale to whimpered, mewling sighs;
great structures crumble to their timber’s dust;
aged soldiers’ shouts turn into babies’ cries,
their heroism’s bread gnawed to the crust.
Proud governments dissemble into gangs;
philosophers’ grand speeches become babbles;
elaborate costumes rot where they hang;
the wise assembly reverts to mere rabble.

And what event precipitates this fall,
what monumental shift in time and space
wreaks havoc on the known, destroying all
to leave in Beauty’s stead a gruesome face —
some wild disruption in the cosmic scheming
that causes misalignment of the spheres?
a moment where the gods cease from their dreaming
and we are left alone when the mist clears?

What then? If our own actions make the future,
with no unseen, omnipotent control,
no divine surgeon to tie off the sutures
and seal the wounds we’ve rendered on the whole;
if we alone, frail humankind, have wandered
so far beyond our role, through pride and greed,
that any promise due us we have squandered
and have no promised land, no guarantee?

What good religions, if they do not teach us
to doubt our own ability to reign
or don’t allow the universe to reach us,
instead instructing to ignore our pain?
All brave words are for naught, if in our bravery
we fail to speak for those whose tongues are dumb;
should our great light cast the whole world in shadow,
what good is knowing whence the morning comes?

23 May 2005

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Published December 29, 2004

Early Morning

There is something liberating about
waking up early. Not too
early, mind you. But earlier
than you need to be
awake; and if you’re lucky,
early enough to see the
last of the night disappear
in the whitewash of the
morning sun, and to hear
the birds when they first
rise and start practicing their
songs, like violinists warming up
outside the concert hall for
a performance later that afternoon.

It’s a sense of freedom,
definitely — and an opportunity to
feel the earth’s slow glow
as it stretches its muscles
and wipes the traces of
sleep from its opening eyes.

29 DEC 2004

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Published December 7, 2004

At Dawn When I Awoke

At dawn, when I awoke, the rain
was but a mist that damped the lawn;
and then its whitewash strength increased
to rinse the night, ’til it was gone.

Its purpose served, it too then waned,
as greys began to blue
and dried the puddles left behind
to just a drop or two.

Yet on the breeze I taste it still —
its cool and fragrant kiss,
that lingers in the morning air;
good days begin like this.

The wrens, at first asleep, or shy,
now venture from their shade
and low, take up their favorite tune
and start to promenade.

07 DEC 2004

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Published December 7, 2004

Morning Resolve

This morning I shall try to set
my sights against the hypocrite
that dwells inside me, giving pause
to any who would praise my cause.

I seek him out, this two-faced toad
whose inner turmoil oft explodes
in fits of misdirected rage
against his keepers, or his cage,

and bid him walk with me a while,
to value substance, over style,
and for a moment to forget
those years developing regret

for dreams undreamt, and songs unsung,
denying that we are among
the smallest spots in life’s design
yet claim so wildly, “mine, mine, mine.”

This morning, for it’s early stil,
there’s time to catch him, and I will,
to, at least for an hour or two,
pretend that he’s illusion, too.

07 DEC 2004

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Published December 4, 2004

Two Murders

Two murders I witnessed in opposite trees
across the canal, voicing cacophony;
a trial of wills between territories
resulting in blackened skies, as the light breeze
of morning and rain brought a chill to my knees.

Not often such numbers are gathered this way,
suggesting an omen to christen the day
accompanying storm clouds hung heavy and gray,
their pregnant, expectant rough edges in fray
awaiting the hour when havoc would play

on all thoughts of picnics, or sunlit parades.
I watched as the black wings formed out of the shade
there in the tall cypress where their nests were laid;
and just for a moment, felt cold and afraid —
then sipped from my hot cup of coffee, just made,

and drew on my pipe, let the thick smoke surround
my head, and then slowly, not making a sound,
rose from my chair, let my feet feel the ground
cool underneath me, and looked once around,
and thought of myself, quite small and unprofound.

Two murders I witnessed in opposite trees
this morning while killing time quite patiently;
and though it was quite unrelated to me
I pondered some moments on the irony
that such things should happen, and that I should see.

04 DEC 2004

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