Dawn

Photograph by Chris Lambert


Dawn


Some love to watch the sea bushes
appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings,
and to hear
The conversations the night sea has
with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven,
there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who
wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name
the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers,
and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God
in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up;
behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons
who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits
were so good
To stay all day in the cave;
but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear
at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars
are right
To adore the baby who smells
of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars
will disappear at dawn.

Robert Bly

Posted over on his site Robert Bly's Home Page

[First appeared in The Paris Review, #154,
Spring 2000.]