Tom Sheehan
It Is a Mouth, This Dawn

It is a mouth, this dawn, gaping promise,
the open doors of a strange barn where
bees throb their thick aching against
sheet metal sun, drawing survival
like ingots from a forge.

All maples wear brash green helmets
the springsmith hammered out of winter.
One of them, stripped by ants, is numbed
into its roots by recollection
and leans into history.

For the first time, for my listening,
the geese, sprung from their southern
bow, heading home to Ottowas, Crees,
marshes and reed grasses still frozen
in the backyard of the Earth,
are silent,

as a hammer rests between strikes,
perhaps arched as the silent horseshoe
at its apex coming to be
a noisy ringer.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #6: Winter 2018, Volume 3 Number 2