Morning Murmur
We could pretend, as in a fiction done
for decoration, that steady buzzes,
scrapings, sweet chirps, and soft tinklings
like temple bells in a humid darkness
come from stars, seen and unseen.
But they’re bugs we rarely see or name
even in the light of day whose time
it is to chime even before the birds
begin to sing. Their noise fills the end
of night so fully as a waning moon
settles into the west it seems darkness
itself makes their clamor. We could say
this harsh music sings farewell to night
like birds greet daylight. Yet in winter
moonlight burns across crusted snow
with frigid silence. Each tiny creature,
nothing in itself as it rubs up an assertion
of itself to the stars’ blank glimmers,
makes but one note of one universal groan
formed by massive numbers. So some
imagine God. Through droning darkness
we blindly walk into a rising melody
and blooming light. And thus believe
we might return eternally to the chorus,
each of us in life again, yet lost
to the life of ourselves that is, or was.
for decoration, that steady buzzes,
scrapings, sweet chirps, and soft tinklings
like temple bells in a humid darkness
come from stars, seen and unseen.
But they’re bugs we rarely see or name
even in the light of day whose time
it is to chime even before the birds
begin to sing. Their noise fills the end
of night so fully as a waning moon
settles into the west it seems darkness
itself makes their clamor. We could say
this harsh music sings farewell to night
like birds greet daylight. Yet in winter
moonlight burns across crusted snow
with frigid silence. Each tiny creature,
nothing in itself as it rubs up an assertion
of itself to the stars’ blank glimmers,
makes but one note of one universal groan
formed by massive numbers. So some
imagine God. Through droning darkness
we blindly walk into a rising melody
and blooming light. And thus believe
we might return eternally to the chorus,
each of us in life again, yet lost
to the life of ourselves that is, or was.
