Listen. Put On Morning

Listen. Put on morning.

Waken into falling light.

A man’s imagining

Suddenly may inherit

The hand-clapping centuries

Of his one minute on earth.

And hear the virgin juries

Talk with his own breath

To the corner boys of his street.

And hear the Black Maria

Searching the town at night.

And hear the play ropes caa

The sister Mary in.

And hear Willie and Davie

Among bracken of Narnain

Sing in a mist heavy

With myrtle and listeners.

And hear the higher town

Weep a petition of fears

At the poorhouse close upon

The public heartbeat.

And hear the children tig

And run with my own feet

Into the netting drag

Of a suicidal principle.

Listen. Put on light break.

Waken into miracle.

The audience lies awake

Under the tenements

Under the sugar docks

Under the printed moments.

The centuries turn their locks

And open under the hill

Their inherited books and doors

All gathered to distill

Like happy berry pickers

One voice to talk to us.

Yes listen. It carries away

The second and the years

Till the heart’s in a jacket of snow

And the head’s in a helmet white

And the song sleeps to be wakened

By the morning ear bright.

Listen. Put on morning.

Waken into falling light.