Mockingbird Morning
Samantha Little, 2010
The blue, sonorous summer night
Is thrilled by a sudden song that
Warms and grows like a golden light
Through my open bedroom window.
I lie still in limp cotton sheets,
Ignoring the stern insistence
Of clocks that unimpassioned beat
The passage of wee morning hours.
Why does he sing? Does he not know
That the pale queen still rules the sky?—
The golden king still far below
The dark horizon edged with stars?
His song yet unabated flows
And weaves itself among the trees,
And I with eyes that will not close,
Lie wakeful because of beauty.
“My mockingbird has returned. Perhaps you remember him? Several weeks ago, he woke me up at three in the morning with his rhapsodies. I was not thrilled at the time, but I do enjoy listening to him in the daylight, once I am meant to be awake!”—from a letter dated April 21, 2009.