I woke in the early morning <br />To hear a bird singing, <br />Solitary, outside our window, <br />The only sound in the world. <br />The eastern sky was still dark, <br />There was an hour yet before dawn. <br />I felt the distilled joy <br />One feels on hearing a favorite song. <br /> <br />Was it singing to attract a mate? <br />To threaten a neighbor? <br />What, I wondered, was the song to it? <br />Was it just some early morning chore? <br />Was it perhaps a bird on a bender? <br />Drunk on fermented berries? <br />Too high to fly home <br />Without risking a ticket? <br /> <br />Soon we'd have to rise <br />Get the kids on the bus - <br />To read poems about Nightingales, <br />To learn about animal territories, <br />And of course we had to get to work ourselves. <br /> <br />I wondered of a sudden, <br />If observed at some remove, <br />By some greater being, <br />If each of our daily activities <br />Might have something of the beauties <br />Of that bird's morning song? <br /> <br />'Jeeze, look at the time, ' you complained, <br />When I roused you with the question. <br />Then a grim, 'I doubt it, ' when I'd explained.<br /><br />William L Roberts<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/morning-song-12/
