The Morning, and Still We Sleep

Continuing, the stillness
of dreams reshaped
is day formed.

The moment of waking,
touched, is never
to be held.

You hand me birds,
their beaks and wings
without song or cadence;

I say wooden
soldiers will stand still,
their fingers sprouting triggers.

Shots fall quietly
in their shade,
and Jay did sing, patriotic,

easing us awake with
whistles— a gentle patrolman,
pressed and perched, shaping citizens.

It should be impossible
to stay asleep in the wood
alive with this urgent,

bright call,
and the quaking form
of sentinels, saluting us

one by one
together, quiet,
and so attentive.

Some ideas, as Emily would I’m sure agree, don’t fit into prose containers.

Scott

They wouldn’t be tall enough, colorful enough or plentiful enough to satisfy their critics; they would also probably lean in the wrong direction or be too susceptible to going wherever the wind took them…