Lauds, Summer: An Antiphon

It never grows old, this sun rising here
every morning
As much as I ever wanted
anything, listen:
birdsong, a dying language
Practice
its rise and fall, its
loss, familiar
as the body
You can never
get close enough
to the ground to pray
Long blue heron, sunslant
on the underwing
armfuls of butterfly weed
and orange
Holy, holy this morning, here
and gone

~Jeanie Tomasko