Morning: Dead Mare Branch

Our mouths are fresh with morning on the hills,

And sleep-washed bodies wake with quickened thought

To sounds of day, to a new strain of words

Rising within our throats like soaring birds.

The winds are up, the coves blow green and cool

With woolly leaves, and catkins thresh the air

Now loud with rusty cries of crows in flight;

The day has come, the sun’s hot-eyed stare

Has quieted the sleepless wanderers of the night.

Light in our hands the ax splits the oak,

The plow blades glide unerring through the earth

And all the fields awake, and all our world is free.

Here is a day ridge-broken and apart,

This is a morning bright upon the heart.