Morning By Morning

Van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

Last week I offered to my blog followers a poem I had written. I have not written in this language for many years. I’ve been writing prose—my blog, the classes I teach, letters on email, business stuff—always probing toward some new understanding. I used to write poetry when younger. I was a teacher of poetry for many years, teaching both the work of great poets and helping my students learn to write poetry. My students often startled me with the freshness of their language and the depth of their insight. They inspired me to see and say things differently. So I wrote poetry too.

In any case, I offer here a second poem for this moment. As I grow older I look at the world a bit differently. I confess I feel rusty at this writing, a little embarrassed by what I offer, yet compelled to go deeper, a little counter note to the dark music playing in the background of our lives. This language and form gives me access to something different, something deeper perhaps, something more important than so much of the prose that defines our world. These new attempts have given for me another path of discovery perhaps. I hope it provides the same for you.

So here is my new poem. I hope you enjoy.

 Another Chance

How then shall I enter into the morning,

As light breaks out over the flowers,

The flowers opening themselves with such gladness,

Overnight the almost autumn air cooling down over the desert.

Even so the world clashes on so fiercely,

darkness and terror spreading all about?

Could this new light over the flowers ever

come to seem obsolete?

Does not this freshness offer up

Another chance to begin again, morning by morning

new mercies to see and sing? How then might I step

more deeply into the light as the sun rises again,

as God has declared, it will rise, always, each morning.

Oh my, I say, as I open my shutters, filled,

once again, like a flower opening gladly.