Poem of the Month
Waking at 4 a.m.

By Stephen Morrissey

Published on June 1, 2015

There in the darkness
silence dwells, and the long
wait for morning, daylight
around the window shade
in what’s left of night;
nothing here is exceptional,
someone sitting on the side
of the bed, feet on the floor,
writing with the patience
of the resigned; observe
the architecture of darkness,
the slow construction of light
across the bedroom floor
(it will all work out
it always has), and the steady
hum of an electrical appliance
in another room;
this is when the poem
of morning is created;
we are workers in the darkness,
early risers, busy with
the enterprise of light.

More Poetry

Spacetime

We Twitter, Tinder, Tumblr through eternity. Loquacious text messages flit from fingertips, waves of data ...

Press

Indeed you miss the point, my friend. It does stand stubbornly guarding mile after mile of soft and useless dust and wind out of the north with a low whine and the lying mouth of the news— the bitch!—the words and weather both are cutting.

Yarrow

There’s the country somewhere outside the car.
The country where the elm fucks the maple
and the elm broods as if auditioning
for a new PBS miniseries.