Day Two: Dawn

a poem a day in the month of may

Day Two. How are we?

First, I love that many of you actually wrote about the stillness of the dawn for your first poem yesterday. It’s a perfect way to lean deeper into the dawn today.

Second, I want to remind us all that if you’ve done this before, you’ll probably recognize some of the word prompts for certain days. Some of these words we’ve written about before, but what I want you to do is to expand what these words mean in different contexts.

Dawn is an element of nature, and shows up to us every single day. But also, dawn is a metaphor for new beginnings, or a way to bring us into the quiet of a new moment.

Expand your horizons. Allow yourself to settle into these prompts and ask them to teach you something new about yourself, about the world.

We come here for the quiet in the chaos, friends.

What is dawn speaking to you?

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Dawn.

I imagine the waking world
as a child who isn’t 
quite ready to open
their eyes, like my youngest
every morning before school.

First, I turn off the box fan
that has provided moving air
and white noise to him all night.

Then I whisper for him to wake,
moving him gently, pulling one
leg out from under the blanket,
then another, then moving to
the light switch to create at least
some artificial waking light.

In much the same way,
Grandmother Moon gently
shakes the world awake,
lifting the flowers from their rest
and the insects from their 
cloak of deep sleep,
asking the birds to consider
taking flight as Grandfather Sun
slowly turns on his light.

The world's creatures yawn and say
“not yet, not yet”
and Grandmother Moon kisses
their cheeks while Grandfather
Sun ushers them through the
dawn, through the soft light 
of a new day and every beginning
waiting to unfold before them.