Mornings have always been special. The sounds blended on the street as Princess (our then German Shepherd) and I walked. The lights in the homes spoke of early risers, the occasional car with lights on. The dog down the street spoke his urgency to get matters started. There still is a benevolence to the morning which I would awaken everyone to feel. It is a palpable part of the day. My body revels in the gentleness, which seems absent during the day but rouses memories and vitality to meet its essence. Times are different now but still such that find me alive and in dialogue with the divine within. We put the blessing on the day.

The Morning’s Bliss

The morning hours stretch before me
and I am the richest woman.
There is a privacy in all aspects.
The morning harbors life rising,
a world awakening
that defies description.
The birds who have survived the night,
the sun which did not get lost,
the flowers and plants that
have drunk of the night’s dew
and I , who also has
survived the night.

We are rich, we who
participate in the morning.
It is we who find it intoxicating.
Grasses which speak to each other,
blade by blade;  flowers that open
their faces to the morning light;
trees whose leaves unfold
to the morning air;
all these greet the good morning.

It is a drunk that I am
as I walk the dog who sniffs
the morning with as much
exhilaration as I do.
I can hardly bear the goodness.

There is a sweet washed feeling
about the streets that hardly
resembles the daytime concrete.
It is a softness about me that I feel,
touch with every cell and taste
with my morning coffee.

It is what I remember
from a somewhere, touch
with a body that has been bathed
in this particular light and move in the air
that has buoyed me for centuries.
Grasp it I want to.
Love it I do.
It is the morning and it is mine.
I paid for it with the night’s labors
in the vineyards.

It is mine.