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.

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36

It all has to fit into twelve lines—a lesser sonnet— all that’s depicted at every instant inside the ...

Waking at 4 a.m.

There in the darkness silence dwells, and the long wait for morning, daylight around the window shade in what’s left of night;