Matins Air

The time arrives when years are mute and all
That is is recapitulated thoughts.
The ghosts of meaty patients on a screen
Though nowhere shining dense a scrap of soul.
Must seem a night-time in one’s own mind
Beglaréd by a screen much harsher than
The moon when shining on two lovers paired;
Throughout the night the innards of any one
Run by your probing eyes except those of
Yourself. Well but this gentle time that’s stopped
Will yet lurch on when night is spent and done,
Thy time for shining in the incidence
Of morn, the light out-come the brighter rival
To that peewee golden disc that over-peeks
The sharp horizon meek. The dawn again
And notes of larks, limbs stretched to feel the crisp
Of matins air; take thee a breath of red-gold,
Of possibility sublimed, of thoughts
Emerging from the sludge, all sensibilities
Returned, unblunted by the dark, unblot
By inky drops of colleagues’ fright, released
From sometimes friends’ misjudging mouths, unrent
By any pangs that in the dark seemed cutting keen,
Now lit by your all-glossing shine the like
Of scratches that were made by silken thorns,
Of bruises by the harmless aphid raised.
In such a glory as the cry of Sona waked
Find the phoenix-fire all the dark engulf,
The egg of new Sona hatched, and the day
Full twice as bright as long-lived night was dusk.