Raising a cup for the sun to shine in
I’m just weary enough inside my skin
Darkening, I listen, for I have been
Too long at the fair and the lights grow dim.
Grandmother’s angel upon the shelf
I hearken to angels inside myself
Harps play in trees ‘midst the beckoning green
Echoes of children, beyond and unseen
Shelley, Keats, Romantics at best
I swooned like a maiden once, flame in my chest
My watery lungs just now bring them to mind
This isn’t a breeze, what comes in on the wind.
This season of pollen, and purple and white
What pleases so many, instills me with fright
It’s a dance, it’s a game, it’s a party, a dream
And now, metaphor, not metonymy.
A morning, a lifetime, a weeping guitar
This season, the sneezin’—it’s just where we are.
Early Morning Poems 