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

Postscript(s)

The fall of ’47 I was 25 and still living in Viluta. What made me stay so long? What made me linger in that nothing place, that hamlet of ten houses?

AIDS Ward

This is the bed, empty again, next to the man dying. This is the strap that ties down the man that lies next to the empty bed.