When Morning Comes
- When Morning Comes
- like the old quail in spring;
- When morning comes and shakes all the dew drops from his
- cloak
- to greet me, and undoes his heavy coat buttons;
- When morning comes
- like the twirling grape-vine
- When morning comes
- like a warm ache between your ribs,
- I want to smell the thawing air, with no weight on my chest,
- wondering:
- what is this bright new gift, that he brings me?
- And therefore I look to each filtered beam of light,
- each root bound clay clump,
- as a reunited family,
- And I look upon falling night skies as no more than an outward breath,
- and I consider the crawling rise of light as another possibility,
- and I think of each night as a blossom, as patient
- as the apple tree, and as isolated,
- and each shade such an easy quiet to the ears,
- leaning, as every silence does, to the birth of sound,
- and each blinded creature a body stilled, and something
- Inaudibly needed by the earth.
- When it’s over, I want to say all through the
- night,
- I was the moon shining with hope,
- I was the sun, blazing out my announcement.
- When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
- if I have made of the day something worthwhile, or right.
- I don’t want to find myself bitter and with regret
- or with any protest to shut my eyes.
- I don’t want to end up simply having seen the day.
This poem is about:
Me
My community
Our world