When Morning Comes

The sun makes his way yet again, and I remember. I said I will write my gratitude into lines and breaks, pauses and still places of poems.

Where to keep these scribbles of awe? Maybe here. Even though I started there. All right then... the second of my "for" poems...

"When Morning Comes"

I open my mouth and breathe the day,
wish for a kiss like the one this golden
trumpet of jewelweed is getting full
on the mouth. Furry bumblebee embraces

her like there's no tomorrow. And I remember
to hold the day because it's true, there may not
be a morning after. And this is why I pause when
rusty shovel unearths rotted pit, peach long gone,

her hope for progeny emptied but now home to
red ants, tiny thousands pouring forth like honey,
spilling onto cocoa shells newly lain beneath
the hyssop, soft pink and pungent. Now I trouble

the bronze-suited honeybee who is fumbling Russian
Sage, tickling her purply-blue tongues, riding her
shining silver leaves that curl and sweat in rainbowed
mist. Shall I forget the three-leafed red maple fragment

on the stair, its green seeds like outstretched arms
now blushing dusty rose? Let me not forget these
seeds, nor the catbird who delights to echo each
whine of my clipping shears, nor the Bible leaf

relieved of yellow flower but fragrant still when I
break a spear and press it to my face. Let me not forget
the white carnation, purple aster, and the stars who
shut their eyes and sleep when morning comes.

Jewelweed and Russian Sage photos by L.L. Barkat.