Dawn’s Everlasting Rise


It starts…

Street lights fade,
their tiny soft-winged tenants flee,
checkerboard facades change,
last night's illumined squares now dark
become but yesterday's portals,
some polished,
some weather streaked,
all reaching to reflect first breath.

Steam ascends from the city's vacuum.

Gratings rattle with subterranean yawning.

People-movers wind their way
through mazes of starts and stops.

Topside tracks,
like fixed contrails,
glisten with frost,
not yet enjoined by speeding transit,
their skeletal tributaries
readying the trickle of humanity
into a mass ocean of glass and steel survival.

Uptown.
Downtown.

A street sweeper's tire rubber and swirling brushes
beneath the overall believer in Lottos
hold firm the wheel and gears of faith and trust,
gathering gutter-lodged disposal,
glass and plastic,
paper and cardboard,
spinning into the vortex,
lifting yesterday's careless cast-offs,
inviting today's Starbuck anew,
perhaps reflections of another kind.

Leashes strain from anxious sniffing,
bladders hold,
ready to burst,
seeking just the right tree,
the right hydrant,
the "ah, yes" that only a canine can know.

Rays of sun begin spilling down alleyways.
The long-tail rodents scamper for cover,
their bellies full,
seeking safety after a long night of ancient ritual,
food of anything,
digestion of never ending history,
all in a night's work.

And them…

Full light cascades down avenues and streets.
Itinerant pigeons and seagulls spread habitual wings,
ready to adore the steadies,
the loners,
park walkers,
window ledge dependables ,
homeless with dance cards of crumbs ,
envying the moneyed insomniacs throwing chunks,
baguettes gone stale,
fit for few,
a feast for many.

Senses loving the coos and warbles,
the bobbing thank you,
the reciprocal bonding,
few but the lonely can appreciate.

Finally…

The steel and glass imitation of nature
comes fully alive,
a sun's illumination without reserve,
energy's provision for another day.

Rich mix with the poor.

Money exchanges.

The hotdog vendor
The hedge fund taker
The cookie jar provider

Most become tomorrow's yesterday,
knowing little of the other light ,
requiring no rising or setting,
illumination that never grows dim,
something needing little illumination,
forever light,
never of darkness.

Such for some
awakens from a New York sunrise,
this dichotomy like no other,
forever reminding
our eyes of dawn,
one's inner light,
is a dawn’s everlasting rise
for those daring to awaken and truly see.