Summer Sunrise

Like a hot air balloon of gasping brightness,

The sun ascends the gravity of night,

Flames into a blinding, red-gold ball

For a few triumphant seconds,

Then slips, satisfied, behind a broken

Stretch of fresh clouds.

In one meek gilded beam it peeks through

Soft crevices and outlines

The dove-breasted sky in gold.

Uniquely audible above the endless

Hum of freeway traffic,

Hesitant notes of stirring birds float

Across Lloyd's farmland

Into my open window.

Mist steams upward over the warmed open field,

Thins across the short-mown hay,

And gradually clears to daylight,

Like troubled thoughts of yesterday

Ascending in fervent prayers

Beneath the conquering sun.

--CJW--