Orange Dawn

ORANGE DAWN

All the birds wait this morning,

heads under wings,

hoping the sky is only a dream.

It has become a flower the size of the cosmos,

a golden poppy,

glowing.

Or maybe the hummingbirds dream

they’ve become tiny again,

screaming inside the nest.

Or even smaller.

They are bees who compete

in this orange flower

for the same nectar.

This is a system:

sleep, wake, create, destroy, 

stamp out the creation, 

shed the skin.

I long for the crust of earth to explode,

for fertile black lava to greet the atmosphere,

for strange new flying things to emerge,

creatures who don’t know how to lie.

I pull the shade down, up, down,

hoping a fairy can yank me from bed,

reinvent the green trees,

bless us to ride the wind of rebirth—

but skip the death part.