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When Morning Comes

by Arden Ashley

  • When Morning Comes
  •  
  • like the old quail in spring;
  •  
  • When morning comes and shakes all the dew drops from his 
  • cloak
  •  
  • to greet me, and undoes his heavy coat buttons;
  •  
  • When morning comes
  •  
  • like the twirling grape-vine
  •  
  •  
  • When morning comes
  •  
  • like a warm ache between your ribs,
  •  
  •  
  •  I want to smell the thawing air, with no weight on my chest,
  • wondering:
  •  
  • what is this bright new gift, that he brings me?
  •  
  •  
  • And therefore I look to each filtered beam of light,
  •  
  • each root bound clay clump,
  •  
  • as a reunited family,
  •  
  • And I look upon falling night skies as no more than an outward breath,
  •  
  • and I consider the crawling rise of light as another possibility,
  •  
  •  
  • and I think of each night as a blossom, as patient
  •  
  • as the apple tree, and as isolated,
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  • and each shade such an easy quiet to the ears,
  •  
  • leaning, as every silence does, to the birth of sound,
  •  
  •  
  • and each blinded creature a body stilled, and something
  •  
  • Inaudibly needed by the earth.
  •  
  •  
  • When it’s over, I want to say all through the 
  •  
  •  
  • night,
  •  
  • I was the moon shining with hope,
  •  
  • I was the sun, blazing out my announcement. 
  •  
  •  
  • When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
  •  
  • if I have made of the day something worthwhile, or right.
  •  
  •  
  • I don’t want to find myself bitter and with regret
  •  
  • or with any protest to shut my eyes.
  •  
  •  
  • I don’t want to end up simply having seen the day. 
 
 
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Arden Ashley

A Pacific Northwest writer and visual artist attending Washington State University.

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