R.E. Slater - Awakening (a poem)

Awakening

by R.E. Slater


Not all at once,

perhaps slowly,
sleepily,
spring awakened
upon an early April's
rhapsodic graces,
heavy with night's
waning fragrances
of cleansing rains,
that wouldst free
bound earth
of dreary winter's
retreating embraces,
and there lie,
quietly alone,
in subduing lights,
remembering
days past bourne
of deeper stirrings,
more ancient callings.

Listening intently,

the haunting verve
of faraway geese
honking in muted,
cacophonous chorus,
its eager flocks
circumscribing
dawn's grey lights
on tireless wing,
carving cold airs
plundering forward
in diminishing echo,
till lost at last,
as quickly as heard,
upon receding memories
of an earlier dawn's
distant birth,
and nevering lands,
beckoning home,
both wont and will.

Remembering
more ancient stirrings,
of youth's lost keeps,
fled on a dawn's
dying echoes sounding
its tympanous chorus
to the burgeoning day,
cleaving its leas,
its forlorn streams,
its desperate byways,
upon a stubborn heart's
resolute dreams
that northward lay
its eternal abodes,
its minstrel lays,
its nethering dawns,
in the early waking lights,
of a new day's arising,
beheld of stout heart,
and faithful Maker.

In whose hands

no charge so deep,
nor call so hard,
is miskept,
nor distant dies,
on a morning's call,
and sounding charge,
affecting wing and heart,
mind and keep,
the eternal flyways
of the beating breast,
pressing wing and voice,
man and beast,
its steady rhythms
of renewing dawns
tissued in membranes
of rebirth, of
time and space,
unto filioqued lands
of more primal decree.


- R.E. Slater

April 12-13, 2014

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