Note: For several years I woke up at 4 am and wrote a new poem each dawn never knowing what would come. I’ve collected the best of them in a book called Morning Songs and now will share some of them with those who are interested.

Each dawn I sit here waiting for the light

that leads me from the dark so I can write

these words, these psalms, these songs of praise, of pain,

of mystery and look up at the sun and rain

and know the weather of another day

and celebrate another chance to say--

this is what I think and feel and know.

Sometimes it’s cold and the words are slow

and I stare into the fire, shivering

in the darkness, waiting for that whispering

in my ear, waiting for that voice to bring

me, like a gift, the words I want to sing.

Sometimes the voice that comes is sweet,

sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s filled with heat

and rage or longing for a lover’s kiss.

Sometimes it comes like a morning mist

and licks me lightly with its tongue

and makes me want to go and be among

the clouds drifting slowly across the sky

and go to some place far away where I

can know the ease of being silent,

and forget the world where words are violent

like a stone thrown in a pond—but here I am

each dawn not knowing should I curse and damn

the gods or whatever it is that makes me long

for the words to sing another morning song

as if I’m a nightingale–a bird

that sings out loud as if its being heard;

that sings because it can and wants to say

I’m here, alive, singing one more day.