Dawn Aurora

Dawn Aurora

The cloud duvet’s the world unbroken except the dawn edge

The Eastern horizon peels back like an old ziplock 

To let in a slice of clear sky.

The sun pops its flaming head above the chalk line:

These raised seabeds, violently shoehorned sheep pastures

The countless dead crustaceans whose compressed grave

Is the land we fight over, kill for, and die for,

The land we pillage like raiders of tombs.

Birds flock and sing as the light multiplies

To fall silent or flee from the roar of the old freight train

Creaking down underfunded lines,

Traffic picks up, the grumble of coffee-fueled vans 

Exhaling little puffs of marbled smoke 

And the sun sits like a child’s head poking out of bed

Luminating the underside of the duvet

With the technicolour brilliance of an aurora,

Foreshadowing the grey of the day,

When the clouds close that gap, and smother everything

In their steely smugness.

I drink in that golden light, like syrup to a fainting honey bee

I pour it over my skin for osmosis,

And hope it lasts me the day.

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Joe Blogs, 2021

Image by Henning Sørby from Pixabay