Morning Watch

John Reibetanz
From:   Morning Watch. Montreal: Véhicule Press 1995, p. 21

Slung in your hammock of comfortable dreams,
woven of the thickest strands
of night--but broad-stitched at this hour,
like a fishnet, letting light
pour through the web like water—
before you raise an eyelid from the pillow,
do not think that there is a world out there.
The sound of distant traffic in your ear is really
the rush of blood humming from its hive,
eager for nectar from the opening flower of morning.
Sight? A fire plays on your eyelids
and like a child, insists you play with it.
Do, and by playing shape it
as a baby's head is shaped by its journey to the light,
or a child takes on the shape of its pursuits—
the architect rising from stacks of wooden blocks,
the mother stitching her image together from rags
her love has warmed to life.
Now, with this in mind, open your eyes and
warm your world to life.
Go to the window and lift the blind: see,
it is not glass, it is the eye of your house
(which is itself the body of your most homebound soul)
and those headlights are the eyes of roving souls
up and out before you,
scissoring the mist, carving and stacking the blocks.
Only where their light knits with the light of your eye
can morning
rise from a restless dream
and wear the warm, close weave of day.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6 | Poem 7 | Poem 8 | Poem 9 | Poem 10 | Poem 11

John Reibetanz's works copyright © to the author.