That day one summer long ago,
my first here on this plane,
when snatched a glimpse did I the break of Morning
and watched him from my window,
a dazzling hue arrested my eyes. I saw him.
He crept upon the slumbering earth,
roving in quiet majesty.
That day in summer did I catch his dusty blush
and hold his secrets in my silence. He moved
before me in a grassland clearance
and smiled. And whereupon that smile stole
my heart, he paraded his progeny,
the vineyards and wheat beds,
the fields of heather.
Quite in his glory, onward did Morning creep like a
feline thief as I watched him that day in summer.
Conducted he the meeting of rays to rain on
rooftops. Morning knelt when he caught sight of the
ground below on which rested a wet leaf and a
chilly worm. Victim to an unusual cold was the tiny
creature, changing tempos of its journey, slowing
to decipher a warmer place.
And in his paternal clemency, Morning scooped
it up in his cradled palms and blew
a warming breath; the tiniest of treasures for a
journeyed worm.
And I wept for Morning’s uncommon gentleness
and called him God.
I clung to kind Morning that day in summer.
Swallowed him I tried, poured him over me
to lose myself within him, a baptism, a fornication.
He passed across my heart,
perched me on a high ridge
that I might watch him move through the trees
and provoke them to dance.
Morning sprinkled his sun
over the sea and me. And out of his
sun-drenched gourd
drank I, and became like a drunkard.
Till distorted Morning became and began to retreat.
Did my clinging turn him from me? I feared my part in this.
And all on earth stilled.
A whippoorwill sang, calling out to
the dusky mystery.
I gripped fast the hem of Morning’s garment,
pleading to be rescued from these coming terrors.
And Morning spoke, bidding me fear not
the illusory monsters of the dark.
“They are but reflections of your fears,”
he spoke. And Morning called himself not God.
“Merely a tilling limb,” he sang. “Night being the humble other.
Welcome her.”
And his sun was no more.
My heart ruptured an ulcer of grief.
I felt Morning’s treason,
and stood scorned and afraid.
So Night advanced, the temptress.
I recoiled and cursed Morning, seeking refuge
where I might amid blooming dogwoods
and blushing primrose.
Thus from beyond the clouds,
a curtain drawn for a diva,
sauntered her infamous moon,
the blood moon,
great and glorious, rendering ghost stories.
And my fear alighted in anticipation
of phantoms that walk the earth. Of fallen angels
and wraiths who haunt the body and gust the rivers.
Of skies so black as would harrow up the soul of
Proserpine herself, and make her a
crying worshipper of the light.
Treasonous Morning was wrong.
Night was nothing humble.
Strut was Night’s word.
And she snagged me. Setting ablaze the sky with
trinkets of opal and ice, Night worked
in her artful splendor,
sucking up the fugue of day, to spit forth a grand
suite for twilight.
Before me nocturnal creatures frolicked and showed me
her masterwork of intuition, vivid dreams,
and womanly magic,
all while rending each other to the bone,
a reptilian dance of survival that only Night’s drape occasioned.
The Dead of dark.
The Nameless apprehension of shadows.
Fireflies, which gave me the tiniest tease of light,
ornamented evergreens like a Christmas tree.
Night wrapped me in her lithe black stole,
— glamour queen! —
and caused me to fall in violet love.
There I indulged in the dark enigma of her,
drowned myself in her inky nectar
to wear her on me,
and thought no more on His Majesty the Morning.
Till, while in my reverie, a spell of time I could not name,
but seemed the blink of an eye,
Night’s tide began to abate, her moon to blanch,
and before my witness, faded
from her gaudy grandeur to a limp gray.
My spirit caved as I prophesied a second betrayal.
Night closed her eyes,
without goodbye, without balm,
and fell to her cycled quietus.
Serenely did sigh a swallow’s
sweet twitters and song.
Softly did burst into bloom the magnificent
morning-glory flower.
And whereupon the inconstant Night yielded to
Morning’s inconstant mien, leaving me
to endure the insufferable inconstancy,
once more did I weep,
for loved them both did I that day
in summer long ago,
and for the days to come,
of every season.
And sorrowed yet surrendered
that seize them each my prisoner
in selfish grip I could not,
and call them
my very
own.
Angela Carole Brown is the author of three published books, The Assassination of Gabriel Champion, The Kidney Journals: Memoirs of a Desperate Lifesaver, and Trading Fours, and has produced several albums of music and a yoga/mindfulness CD. Bindi Girl Chronicles is her writing blog. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & YouTube.
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