Awake before 6 am

Awake before 6 am

I’m never sure if the distant roar I hear

is the waves hitting the shore

at St Kilda or St Clair, or

some pre-working-day collective snore

rising from ten thousand or more houses,

people dreaming behind closed doors

of the day gone, or the day before them.

In gardens all around is the pre-dawn

twittering of a thousand birdsongs soaring;

then, sun rising, an end to the outpouring:

a reverence and a waiting awe for

the new day, which to bow before
humans now deplore.

Thanks to Kay Cooke for her helpful suggestion on this poem.