Few
The birds
singing before dawn
know it’s better to sing then
than at midday.
True, the audience is limited
to a wakeful few:
a jogging insomniac,
a dog owner,
a nightsky nerd.
However, that limited audience, that wide-eyed handful,
cannot help but pay sharp attention.
Pre-dawn, the distractions are so few:
not-so-many sounds-of things-on-the-road,
fewer sights; vision restricted to moonlight,
the whirling mind stiller sometimes when outside in cooler dark air.
Birdsong at that time is clear and insistent, an earful of pleasure.
More than that, then birdsong does magical work:
The insomniac forgets about attempting sleep,
but decides to meet the dawn at the edge of town.
The dog owner scoops a brown lump off a lawn,
letting her irritation go,
and thinks instead of the lovable puppy the dog once was.
The nightnerd thinks that this star-pocked night
is too fullwonder to amass just for himself;
he thinks of someone he will ask.
All the while,
all
that the birds know
is that singing
before dawn
is better than
singing at midday.
Comment from Daniele Rossi
Time June 30, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Great poem!