Dawn
✺
The Last Things I'll Remember
by Joyce Sutphen
The partly open hay barn door,
white frame around the darkness,
the broken board,
small enough for a child
to slip through.
Walking in the cornfields
in late July, green tassels overhead,
the slap of flat leaves as we pass,
silent and invisible from any road.
Hollyhocks leaning
against the stucco house,
peonies heavy as fruit,
drooping their deep heads
on the dog house roof.
Lilac bushes between the lawn
and the woods, a tractor shifting
from one gear into the next,
the throttle opened,
the smell of cut hay,
rain coming across the river,
the drone of the hammer mill,
milk machines at dawn.
~
Not knowing when
the dawn will come
I open every door;
Or has it feathers like a bird,
Or billows like a shore?
―Emily Dickinson
~
Storm, wind, the wild March sky, sunsets and dawns; the birds and bees, butterflies and flowers of her garden, with a few trusted human friends, were sufficient companionship. The coming of the first robin was a jubilee beyond crowning of monarch or birthday of pope; the first red leaf hurrying through "the altered air," an epoch. Immortality was close about her; and while never morbid or melancholy, she lived in its presence.
―Mabel Loomis Todd on Emily Dickinson, August 1891
~
A new spring
and it’s still 5:30
on the cabin’s clock.
It’s always dawn
or time for dinner.
My favorites.
―Braided Creek
~
Come quickly. You mustn’t miss the dawn. It will never be just like this again.
―Georgia O'Keeffe
✺
Poem: Before Dawn on Bluff Road
Poem: For the Bird Singing Before Dawn
Poem: [Being walkers with the dawn and morning]
Poem: [Each morning before dawn,]
Poem: Sonnet [This day when waking from pertubéd sleep]
Poem: When Dawn Comes to the City
Poem: I wake at dawn to glimpse my barren chest and speak to the children I won’t birth.
Poem: Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles
Poem: August 12 in the Nebraska Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower
Poem: Blessing for the Longest Night
Poem: The Consolation of Apricots
Poem: It is the time of rain and snow
Poem: Aubade with Bread for the Sparrows
Poem: Aubade Beginning with Sleep Apnea
Poem: Aubade Beginning in Handcuffs
Poem: Aubade with Attention to Pathos
Poem: Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito