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.