The night devoured me.
Ate up my soul.
In the morning
there was only dew on the grass,
a hint of rain,
and I stepped into the garden
to cut a rose.
The Queen Elizabeth,
pink as a shell from a dark reef,
glowing with dawn,
to light up the table.
To raise me to the level
of the town’s
old chapel,
with blood stained glass
and grapes hung in the windows.
A way to have coffee
and contemplate a prayer,
or news of the world.
The birds are reporting its stories,
but the ants don’t stop,
too much to do,
not enough time to do it.
The birds fill me in,
and the lilacs blush with the gossip
and I hear enough.
The street hums with traffic,
and the cadence of morning speeds up.
I shake off the drug of sleep.
Read the newspaper
and do the crossword.
War will start in Iraq today,
and unreported,
an extraordinary child will be born.
All in the hours of a day,
like licking ice cream
to the edge of a cone,
the ocean drained dry
to the last rolling wave.