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.